MODERN  AMERICAN  WRITERS 


OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 


Our  Short  Story  Writers 


BY 

BLANCHE  COLTON  WILLIAMS,  PH.D. 

Instructor  in  Story  Writing,  Columbia  University  (Extension  Teaching 
and  Summer  Session);  Associate  Professor  of  English, 

Hunter  College  of  the  City  of  New  York. 

Author  of  "A  Handbook  on  Story  Writing";  "How  to  Study  'The  Best 

Short  Stories' ";  "Gnomic  Poetry  in  Anglo-Saxon"; 

Editor  "A  Book  of  Short  Stories." 


NEW  YORK 
MOFFAT,  YARD  &  COMPANY 

1920 


COPYRIGHT,  1920, 
BY 

,  YARD  &  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  U.  S.  A. 


To 

FRANKLIN  THOMAS  BAKER 
PROFESSOR  OF  ENGLISH 
COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY 


459140 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I  AQE 

^.    Alice  Brown    .     » * 

CHAPTER  II 

C    /awes  Branch  Cdbell 22 

CHAPTER  III 

Dorothy  Canfield 41 

CHAPTER  IV 

Robert  W.  Chambers        55 

CHAPTER  V 

^    Irvin  Shrewsbury  Cobb 73 

CHAPTER  VI 

I .    James  Brendan  Connolly 85 

CHAPTER  VII 

Richard  Harding  Davis 105 

CHAPTER  VIII 

Margaret  Wade  Deland 129 

CHAPTER  IX 

—    EdnaFerber 146 

CHAPTER  X 

Mary  Wilkins  Freeman 160 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XI 

Hamlin  Garland 182 

CHAPTER  XII 

William  Sidney  Porter  ("O.  Henry")    .     ...     .     200 

CHAPTER  XIII 

Joseph  Hergesheimer 223 

CHAPTER  XIV 

Fannie  Hurst 237 

CHAPTER  XV 

Jack  London 256 

CHAPTER  XVI 

James  Brander  Matthews M     .     278 

CHAPTER  XVII 

~  Melville  Davisson  Post     .,,,....     293 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

Mary  Roberts  Rinehart    .     .. .    .  ' 309 

CHAPTER  XIX 

Booth  Tarkington       .      ..-....»,     .     .     .     .     .     322 

CHAPTER  XX 

Edith  Wharton 337 


FOREWORD 

AT  the  risk  of  supererogation  I  desire  to  state 
emphatically  that  these  twenty  authors  are  only 
representative  of  our  short  story  writers.  T 
labor  under  no  delusion  that  they  are  all  we  have  Oi 
high  rank,  rather  am  I  inclined  to  suspect  that  the  first 
prospective  reader  will  find  his  favorite  story  teller 
missing.  Some  of  my  own  preferred  stylists  are  con 
spicuously  absent;  and,  although  for  the  nost  part  I 
have  included  those  whom  within  prescnoed  limits  I 
place  first,  I  regretfully  record  the  absentees.  The 
short  story  is  the  literary  medium  that  supersedes  all 
others  in  America;  one  small  volume  is  a  container 
too  exiguous  for  even  its  chief  authors. 

According  to  the  dominant  principle  working 
thror  "lout  the  series  of  which  this  book  is  a  unit,  the 
writers  discussed  should  be  living  or  at  least  con 
temporary.  If,  by  request  of  the  publishers,  Jack 
London  and  "O.  Henry"  were  to  be  replevined  from 
the  famous  dead,  I  was  of  the  opinion  that  Richard 
Harding  Davis  should  not  be  omitted.  Henry  James, 
from  a  literary  point  of  view,  would  precede  any  of 
these  three.  For  reasons  later  -  forthcoming,  how 
ever,  he  is  not  among  those  present.  The  seventeen 


FOREWORD 

living  writers  I  have  chosen  on  three  counts:  sig 
nificance  of  work  in  time  or  theme  or  other  respect; 
weight  or  actual  value  of  work,  and  quantity  of  work 
measured  by  the  number  of  stories  or  story  volumes. 
It  happens  that  certain  significant  writers  may  have 
been  left  out  because  of  their  having  turned,  after  one 
momentous  contribution  to  the  short  story,  to  the  novel, 
or  for  other  reason  having  failed  to  produce  a  corpus 
of  short  story  material.  George  W.  Cable's  place  in 
literature  was  established  primarily  through  Old  Creole 
Days;  but  in  the  opinion  of  the  present  writer  the 
niche  he  occupies  is  that  of  novelist.  "Octave 
Thanet"  one  might  rightly  expect  to  find  here.  But 
only  her  first  volume  had  been  published  when  Ham- 
lin  Garland's  Main-Travelled  Roads  appeared,  and 
there  were  stronger  arguments  for  his  inclusion.  Many 
recent  writers  have  published  in  leading  periodicals 
stories  which  have  not  yet  found  preservation  between 
the  covers  of  a  book.  There  are  enough  of  these 
writers  alone  to  justify  a  volume  of  reviews. 

Herein  are  Alice  Brown  and  Mary  Wilkins  Free 
man,  interpreters  of  New  England;  Irvin  Cobb, 
humorist,  Southerner  and  journalist  successor  to 
R.  H.  D. ;  Edith  Wharton,  representative  of  culture 
and  the  Henry  James  school;  Dorothy  Canfield,  lover 
of  humanity  and  democracy;  Robert  W.  Chambers, 
imaginative  artist,  superior  to  Chambers  the  novelist; 
Melville  Davisson  Post,  detective  story  writer,  and 
Brander  Matthews,  New  York  realist,  technicians  who 


FOREWORD 

have  held  out  for  the  story;  Mary  Roberts  Rinehart, 
product  of  the  motion  picture  era;  James  Brendan 
Connolly,  author  of  sea  stories  pronouncedly  individ 
ual;  Hamlin  Garland,  realist  of  the  Middle  West; 
Margaret  Deland,  witness  through  her  Pennsylvania 
tales  that  religion  and  truth  are  not  incompatible  with 
dramatic  effect;  Booth  Tarkington,  satirist,  argus- 
eyed  reader  of  life;  Fannie  Hurst,  stylist  of  distinc 
tion  and,  with  Edna  Ferber,  portrait  painter  of  the 
middle  class  of  New  America;  James  Branch  Cabell 
and  Joseph  Hergesheimer  seekers  after  beauty,  per 
formers  of  "the  old  gesture  toward  the  stars." 

So  ends  the  first  score;  and,  on  demand  there  are 
these  toward  a  second :  Mary  Raymond  Shipman  An 
drews,  Wilbur  Daniel  Steele,  George  W.  Cable,  "Oc 
tave  Thanet",  Katharine  Fullerton  Gerould,  Rupert 
Hughes,  Clarence  Budington  Kelland,  Gouverneur 
Morris,  "Charles  Egbert  Craddock",  Annie  Trumbull 
Slosson,  Mary  Synon,  Will  Allen  White,  Josephine 
Daskam  Bacon,  Mary  Heaton  Vorse,  Lawrence  Perry, 
Willa  Gather,  Henry  Van  Dyke,  with  your  own  prefer 
ences  to  complete  the  twenty. 

This  volume  must  conform,  in  a  measure,  to  the 
series,  of  which  several  numbers  have  already  ap 
peared.  But  one  difference  will  be  noticed :  there  are, 
comparatively,  fewer  names  of  authors,  and  they  are 
treated  at  proportionately  greater  length.  An  entire 
volume,  by  George  Gordon,  is  devoted  to  The  Men 
Who  Make  Our  Novels,  and  another,  by  Grant  Over- 


FOREWORD 

ton,  to  The  Women  Who  Make  Our  Novels.  Forty- 
seven  names  are  included  in  the  first  of  these;  thirty- 
five  in  the  second. 

The  biographical  data  have  been  secured  from  the 
highest  available  sources,  and  when  I  have  drawn  con 
siderably  upon  one  source  as  I  have  done  in  Adventures 
and  Letters  of  Richard  Harding  Davis  (Edited  by 
Charles  Belmont  Davis),  or  Dr.  C.  Alphonso  Smith's 
O.  Henry  Biography,  I  have  been  scrupulous  to  in 
dicate  the  fact. 

It  is  a  pleasure  here  to  express  sincere  thanks  to  my 
friend  and  colleague,.  Mrs.  J.  H.  Temple,  Jr.  ("E.  K. 
T."),  who  contributed  the  chapter  on  James  Brendan 
Connolly. 

BLANCHE  COLTON  WILLIAMS 
New  York  City, 
October  22,  1920. 


OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 


CHAPTER  I 

ALICE   BROWN 

MR.  GRANT  OVERTON  in  The  Women  Who 
Make  Our  Novels  says  discriminatingly  about 
the  lady  whose  name  heads  this  chapter: 
"It  is  perhaps  unfortunate  that  in  a  book  dealing  with 
American  women  novelists  it  should  be  necessary  to 
confine  the  consideration  of  Alice  Brown  to  her  novels." 
Novelist,  essayist,  poet,  dramatist,  Alice  Brown  has 
done  her  best  work  in  the  short-story.  On  looking 
over  certain  of  her  earlier  collections,  however,  one 
might  well  ask,  "Would  the  content  of  these  tales  not 
gain  if  organized  into  novel  form?"  Whether  Miss 
Brown's  first  short-stories  are  to  be  regarded  as  tenta 
tive  efforts  toward  noveldom  or  whether  her  novels 
must  be  viewed  as  the  work  of  a  short-story  writer 
straying  afield  is  a  moot  question.  Not  inconceivably 
she  is  one  of  those  rare  authors  destined  to  compara 
tive  success  in  two  literary  types. 


2  OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

rr The  New  Hanlpshire  scenes  and  persons  in  Meadow 
Grass  Xtiti'Tiveribn  Tales,  obviously  direct  from  her 
memory  and  observation,  occur  and  recur  throughout 
the  volumes.  One  lays  them  down  and  with  slight 
effort  constructs  a  neighborhood  history.  If  not  quite 
novels  in  embryo  or  even  in  the  amorphous  state,  they 
are  at  least  prophecies.  Beginning  with  High  Noon, 
Miss  Brown  entered  into  constructive  fiction.  Her 
previous  building  rested  on  the  knowledge  and  inherit 
ance  of  childhood.  The  High  Noon  accomplishment 
is  that  of  an  artist  finding  herself,  uncertainly,  grop 
ingly,  in  her  chosen  form.  For  this  reason  the  stories 
are  not  real  nor  convincing  as  are  those  in  the  earlier 
volumes.  They  are  trials  toward  a  new  goal.  In  The 
County  Road,  Vanishing  Points,  and  The  Flying  Teu 
ton  the  author  has  arrived.  She  is  sure  of  her  manner, 
her  invention  and  her  technic.  She  has  mellowed  to 
maturity.  This  is  by  no  means  to  say  that  her  first 
books  may  not  be  so  valuable.  From  the  point  of  view 
of  literary  history  they  are  superior.  No  historian  of 
New  England  writing  henceforth  may  afford  to  neglect 
her  studies — not  more  than  he  might  omit  those  of 
Sarah  Orne  Jewett  or  the  first  work  of  Mary  Wilkins 
Freeman.  On  the  other  hand,  no  account  of  the  short- 
story  would  be  complete  without  emphasis  upon  the 
greater  art  of  her  second  and  third  periods. 

Had  Alice  Brown  so  elected  she  might  have  ranked 
higher  as  essayist  or  poet  than  story  writer.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  add  that  she  may  be  remembered  as  dram- 


ALICE  BROWN  3 

atist.  Something  of  her  own  feeling  about  the  me 
dium  of  expression  she  probably  put  into  the  letter  Zoe, 
Montrose  wrote  Francis  Hume  (in  The  Day  of  His 
Youth)  :  "Do  not  write  verse  until  you  fail  to  express 
yourself  in  prose.  Verse  should  glide  full-winged  over 
the  surface  of  the  waters  where  the  spirit  of  God  lies 
sleeping."  Her  versatility  has  meant  breadth  and 
variety;  it  has  not  favored,  even  if  it  has  not  hindered, 
her  intensification  in  any  one  of  the  literary  forms. 
If  it  has  conduced  to  mixture  rather  than  subtile  dif 
ferentiation  of  type,  then  the  glory  is  greater  to  her 
short-stories  that  they  have  emerged  triumphant. 

Alice  Brown  was  born  in  Hampton  Falls,  New 
Hampshire,  December  5,  1857.  "Her  home  was  not 
so  far  from  the  sea,"  says  Harriet  Prescott  Spof- 
ford,  "that  the  swift  sea-turn  did  not  creep  in  with 
its  salt  dews;  and  there  the  sound  of  the  rote  after 
great  storms  reached  her  ears  and  startled  her  imag 
ination."  She  went  to  a  district  school,  which  she 
has  undoubtedly  commemorated  in  Number  Five,  the 
opening  essay  in  Meadow  Grass.  "Up  to  the  very 
hollow  which  made  its  playground  and  weedy  garden 
the  road  was  elm-bordered  and  lined  with  fair  mead 
ows,  skirted  in  the  background  with  shadowy  pines,  so 
soft  they  did  not  even  wave;  they  only  seemed  to 
breathe."  The  treasures  of  the  road  she  touches  with 
lingering  hand:  the  watering  trough,  the  lichened 


4  OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

fence,  the  pasture;  the  forget-me-not  and  the  milk 
weed;  the  little  river,  the  bridge  and  the  meadows. 

There  her  environment  was  not  unlike  that  of  her 
compeers  over  America;  there  history  repeated  itself. 
There  was  the  boy  who  led  his  class  (he  does  his  hayin' 
now  by  hand)  ;  there  was  the  youngster  who  ran  away 
(he  has  become  the  shif'less  citizen)  ;  there  the  insepa 
rable  friends  fell  in  love  with  the  same  girl  (only  one 
remains)  ;  there  was  the  little  girl  who  lived  with  the 
selectman's  wife  and  who  had  only  one  beautiful  thing 
to  remember  all  her  life — a  pink  cambric  dress  given 
her  by  the  lady  who  "boarded"  a  few  weeks  in  the 
neighborhood. 

It  is  deducible  from  her  Tiverton  stories  that,  apart 
from  her  school  life,  Miss  Alice  absorbed  all  the  cus 
toms  of  the  country  and  saw  everything.  She  watched 
the  making  of  rugs,  hand-woven  coverlets,  occasionally 
the  carding  of  wool  into  rolls  and  the  spinning  of  rolls 
into  thread;  she  knew  how  to  make  "riz  doughnuts" 
and  pies  and  biscuits;  she  knew  what  it  was  to  visit 
in  the  "sullar"  barrels  of  Bald'ins  and  barrels  of  pork. 
She  knew  how  butter  was  kept  cool  (for  she  has  re 
corded  an  instance  of  a  napkin  lost  in  the  well) ; 
she  knew  how  to  churn  and  how  to  "make  the  butter 
come/'  She  observed  the  hogsheads  under  the  eaves, 
where  insects  came  daily  to  their  death.  She  officiated 
at  the  winding  of  grandfather's  clocks,  took  sharp  note 
of  false  teeth,  and  knew  that  chewing  cloves  or  wearing 
cracker  poultices  supposedly  abated  the  pain  of  an 


ALICE  BROWN  5 

aching  molar.  She  was  aware  that  a  medicated  stock 
ing-leg  is  soothing  to  a  sore  throat.  She  was  familiar 
with  the  cinnamon  rose,  the  clove  pink  and  the  currant 
worm;  she  must  have  loved  the  larkspurs  and  ladies' 
delights,  for  she  uses  them  over  and  again;  she  took 
note  of  hollows  under  syringa  bushes  where  hens  had 
bathed.  She  walked  lanes  bordered  with  raspberry 
and  rose;  roaming  the  fields  and  woods,  she  learned 
thoroughwort,  spearmint,  pennyr'yal,  wormwood  and 
tansy.  She  loved  the  forest  under  the  sun  and  under 
the  moon.  Always  she  has  loved  trees ;  from  her  first 
stories  to  her  latest,  she  is  a  Druid. 

With  adjoining  communities  she  was  on  terms  of 
acquaintance.  Penrith  figures  occasionally;  Horn  o' 
the  Moon  frequently;  Sudleigh  often.  Sudleigh,  rival 
of  Tiverton!  The  name  is  no  mask  for  the  initiated; 
it  serves  as  well  as  the  real  for  others.  It  is  perhaps 
an  example  of  unconscious  humor  or  native  shrewd 
ness  that  New  England  thrift  is  illustrated  in  the  Sud- 
leighites  (not  by  the  Tivertonians)  who  sold  ice  water 
on  a  memorable  occasion  for  a  penny  a  glass. 

Above  all,  Alice  Brown  knew  people.  Her  picture 
of  an  old  lady  climbing  upon  an  antiquated  steed  by 
means  of  chair  and  "cricket"  one  would  take  oath  is 
memory  drawn ;  her  village  witch  is  reminiscent,  albeit 
speaking,  we  doubt  not,  Miss  Brown's  own  philosophy : 
"There's  a  good  deal  missed  when  ye  stay  at  home 
makin'  pies  an'  a  good  deal  ye  can  learn  if  ye  live  out 
door."  Some  years  have  passed  since  we  saw 


f\ 


J  \ 


6  OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Children  of  Earth  at  Mr.  Ames's  Little  Theatre;  but 
we  have  not  forgotten  the  village  fool  whose  presence 
in  the  play  testifies  to  his  creator's  kinship  with  Shake 
speare.  Miss  Dyer  and  Mrs.  Blair,  of  Joint  Owner 
ship  (in  Meadow  Grass)  are  true  neighborhood  types. 
Then  there  are  Parson  True  and  his  daughter,  Farmer 
Eli  Pike  and  his  family,  including  Hattie's  Sereno, 
and  the  Mardens,  who,  though  types,  are  individual 
ized,  and  we  hazard,  all  of  them,  from  originals. 
There  is  the  old  lady  who,  despoiled  of  youth's  desire, 
approached  octogenarianhood  wearing  a  hat  that  proud 
ly  sported  lavender  roses ;  there  is  the  vexatious  Widow 
Poll,  who  tagged  along  where  she  was  not  wanted  and 
who  thrust  her  heavy  foot  by  accident,  premeditated 
or  unpremeditated,  into  Heman's  violin  case  (if  she 
did  not  wear  Congress  gaiters,  with  elastic  sides,  some 
of  her  sisters  did) ;  there  are  the  comforters  of  the 
sick  who  talk  of  death  under  circumstances  similar 
to  those  attending  the  comfortee;  there  are  those  who 
immolate  themselves  on  the  shrine  of  ancestor  worship 
and  drag  out  barren  lives — if  service  is  ever  barren. 

Her  nomenclature  is  redolent  of  New  England: 
Caleb  (Kelup),  Eli,  Cyrus,  David,  Elkanah,  Solon, 
Liddy,  Luceba,  'Mandy,  Dorcas,  Delilah. 

And  if  her  characters  are  not  idealized  portraits  of 
childhood  acquaintances  they  may  well  have  been.  If 
we  go  up  Tiverton  way  we  believe  we  shall  find  them 
all — older,  perhaps,  or  even  in  the  churchyard  or  rec 
ognizable  in  their  descendant  "  'Ain't  you  Ruf e 


ALICE  BROWN  7 

Gill?'  Fielding  made  the  concession  of  his  verb  to 
place  and  time.  The  other  straightened  himself.  'Well, 
no/  he  said,  'I  ain't.  But  father  is.'  "  (From  A  Run 
away  Match,  in  High  Noon.) 

In  The  End  of  All  Living,  her  final  sketch  in  Twer- 
ton  Tales,  Miss  Brown  pictures  the  churchyard  behind 
the  First  Church,  on  a  sloping  hillside,  * 'Overrun  with 
a  briery  tangle,  and  relieved  by  Nature's  sweet  and 
cunning  hand  from  the  severe  decorum  set  ordinarily 
about  the  dead/'  For  interest,  the  burial  ground  in 
Plymouth  offers  fit  comparison  with  the  spot  described 
by  Miss  Brown,  as  Irving's  Westminster  Abbey  is  its 
companion-piece  in  literature. 

About  1871  or  '72,  Miss  Brown  began  her  course  at 
Robinson  Seminary  in  Exeter.  During  the  hardest 
winter  months  she  lived  in  Exeter,  but  the  rest  of  the 
year  she  walked  to  and  from  her  home,  nearly  four 
miles. 

It  is  less  easy  to  determine  from  her  work  what 
she  gathered  in  that  period  of  advanced  schooling. 
But  she  must  have  tucked  away  a  good  bit  from  the 
English  poets,  Wordsworth,  Keats,  Milton,  Rossetti 
and  Tennyson ;  in  those  days  she  was  training  to  teach. 
Her  first  essays  are  touched  with  unconscious  rhythm 
of  poetry.  " — or  when  the  board  was  set,  what  faces 
smiled,"  ends  a  sentence  in  Number  Five,  "a  haunting 
spirit  in  perennial  bliss"  closes  The  End  of  All  Living. 
Perfect  iambic  pentameters,  each.  It  was  from  her; 


8  OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

poetic  power,  Harriet  Prescott  Spofford  said  some 
years  ago,  her  friends  expected  the  most. 

Miss  Brown  taught  for  a  few  years  in  the  country 
and  Boston,  but  "hating  it  more  and  more  every  min 
ute,"  as  she  herself  has  said,  she  gave  up  teaching 
for  writing.  After  working  for  a  time  on  the  Chris- 
tian  Register,  she  became,  in  1885,  a  member  of  the 
staff  of  The  Youth's  Companion.  There  she  ground 
out  stuff  from  the  latest  books  and  magazines  and 
wrote  stories.  Eventually  she  resigned  to  devote  her 
self  entirely  to  writing. 

In  1886  she  first  went  abroad,  spending  the  greater 
part  of  the  year  in  France;  in  1890  she  went  again, 
"enjoying  five  months  of  gentle  vagabondage  in  Eng 
land."  Part  of  the  time  she  spent  in  London,  but 
more  of  it  in  Devon  and  Cornwall,  regions  for  which 
she  was  made  eager  through  the  history  of  her  native 
village.  It  will  be  recalled  by  those  who  have  read 
The  Flat-Iron  Lot  (Tiverton  Tales),  "the  first  settlers 
came  from  Devon."  Six  years  later,  By  Oak  and 
Thorn,  a  collection  of  travel  reminiscences,  incorpor 
ated  Miss  Brown's  reaction  to  her  pleasant  holiday. 

In  1895  she  made  another  journey,  in  the  compan 
ionship  of  Louise  Imogen  Guiney,  walking  all  of  ten 
weeks  in  Wales,  Shropshire  and  Devon,  and  going  up 
to  London  for  a  season  with  the  younger  English 
poets.  In  collaboration  with  Miss  Guiney,  she  pub 
lished  a  booklet  on  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  a  study 
which  is  also  an  appreciation. 


ALICE  BROWN  9 

In  1895  Meadow  Grass  appeared.*  Reviews  of 
the  book  favored  Farmer  Eli's  Vacation.  C.  M. 
Thompson,  writing  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  July,  1906, 
states  that  he  regards  it  as  Miss  Brown's  best  achieve 
ment.  But  in  story  value  and  structure  it  is  inferior 
to  Told  in  the  Poorhouse,  A  Righteous  Bargain,  or 
Joint  Owners  in  Spain,  not  to  go  outside  of  the  same 
covers.  As  has  been  indicated  in  reconstructing  the 
early  days  of  Miss  Brown's  life,  these  are  tales,  pre 
sumably,  of  the  Hampton  Falls  neighborhood.  The 
homely  dialect  of  this  and  her  succeeding  collection, 
Tiverton  Tales  (1899)  contributes  to  verisimilitude 
and  drama  as  it  inspires  the  reader  with  sympathy  for 
the  dramatis  personal.  In  English  fiction  one  must 
go  to  George  Eliot  for  fit  comparison;  Mary  Ann 
Evans,  one  of,  and  yet  apart  from,  Warwickshire  folk, 
saw  their  oddities  and  foibles.  Miss  Brown  stands 
in  the  same  relation  to  her  Tivertonians.  She  is  one 
of  them  at  heart,  and  yet  she  is  not  quite  democratic. 
Not  that  she  feels  aloofness  or  means  to  convey  supe 
riority.  She  suffers  from  or  profits  by  a  point  of 
view,  native  to  her  and  strengthened  by  absence,  which 
recognizes  them  as  "characters."  In  so  recognizing 
them  she  unconsciously  aligns  herself  with  the  external 
standards  of  conventionality  and  culture.  Now  and 
then  she  drops  into  an  "I"  use  which  brings  her  singu 
larly  back  into  the  magic  circle  of  her  own.  Mr.  C.  M. 
Thompson  liked  her  dialect  stories  because  he  knew 

*  Preceded  by  her  early  novel,  Fools  of  Nature. 


io          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

her  class  of  people;  a  writer  in  Reedy' s  Mirror  later 
remarked  that  if  one  cannot  sympathize  with  her 
people  it  is  because  he  is  so  saturated  with  the  New 
England  atmosphere.  The  combined  comment  offers 
two  somewhat  contradictory  angles  from  which  re 
sults  agreement  that  she  is  successful. 

The  technique  of  these  stories  reveals  the  tryer-out. 
After  All,  for  example,  maintains  unity  by  a  nice 
emphasis  upon  character ;  it  works  out  its  theme.  But 
the  "story"  falters.  So  the  dramatic  note  occurs,  but 
by  fits  and  starts,  showing  that  the  author  has  the 
sense  of  drama  but  has  not  learned  properly  to  subdue 
the  unimportant,  to  graduate  to  scale  and  to  point  up 
her  climaxes.  She  sees  the  universally  dramatic  and 
pathetic  in  human  relations,  however  small  the  reveal 
ing  occurrence.  Told  in  the  Poorhouse  will  illustrate 
as  well  as  any  of  the  tales  her  early  inclination  to  the 
dramatic : 

Josh  Harden  and  his  wife  Lyddy  Ann  have  been 
married  for  "fifteen  year"  when  Josh's  second  cousin 
'Mandy  comes  to  help  with  the  work.  She  starts  trou 
ble.  Josh  "looked  at  'Mandy  an'  he  got  over  seein' 
Lyddy  Ann,  that's  all."  On  Josh's  birthday  'Mandy 
gave  him  a  present  of  a  bill  folder.  He  discarded  the 
old  one.  Lyddy  took  it  back  for  her  own.  "An*  after 
wards  it  come  out  that  the  old  pocket-book  was  one 
she'd  bought  for  him  afore  they  was  married — earned 
in  bindin'  shoes."  Later,  when  'Mandy  presumed  to 
sit  in  Lyddy 's  place  at  table,  the  wife  ordered  her  up. 


ALICE  BROWN  IL 

"You've  took  my  husband  away,  but  you  shan't  take 
my  place  at  table."  Josh  orders  Lyddy  into  the  fore- 
room.  'Mandy  leaves.  For  some  years  Lyddy  keeps 
to  her  side  of  the  house,  Josh  to  his.  At  last  he  falls 
sick,  suffers  a  stroke,  and  Lyddy  tends  him.  Before 
he  dies  he  makes  trial  of  speech.  Lyddy  thinks  she 
understands,  "  'Yes,  Joshuay,  yes,  dear !'  An'  she  got 
up  an'  took  the  pocket-book  'Mandy  had  gi'n  him  off 
the  top  o'  the  bureau  an'  laid  it  down  on  the  bed  where 
he  could  git  it.  But  he  shook  his  head,  an'  said  the 
word  ag'in,  an'  a  queer  look — as  if  she  was  scairt  an' 
pleased — flashed  over  Lyddy  Ann's  face.  She  ran 
into  the  parlor,  an'  come  back  with  that  old  pocket- 
book  he'd  give  up  to  her,  an'  she  put  it  into  his  well 
hand.  That  was  what  he  wanted.  His  fingers  gripped 
it  up,  an'  he  shet  his  eyes.  He  never  spoke  ag'in." 

The  stories  in  Meadow  Grass  and  Tiverton  Tales 
reveal,  in  the  complimentary  sense,  their  feminine  au 
thorship.  Miss  Brown  sees  events  through  the  wom 
an's  eyes,  which  means  that  she  sees  them  more  truly 
than  if  she  attempted  the  masculine  point  of  view. 
For  the  sexes  rarely  envision  correctly  other  than 
through  their  respective  lenses.  And  although  Miss 
Brown's  later  stories  succeed  in  assuming  the  mascu 
line  angle,  she  grew  in  years  and  in  practice  before 
attempting  it.  Whether,  therefore,  playing  up  a  wom 
an  heroine  or  villain  Miss  Brown's  earlier  stories  em 
phasize  the  woman's  outlook.  Her  men  are  convinc 
ing,  but  slightly  drawn;  they  appear  infrequently,  as 


12          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

men  on  a  New  England  farm  are  infrequently  at  the 
house.  Her  children  are  shadowy.  Either  they  are 
cowed  and  humble,  like  Rosie  of  the  March  Wind,  or 
they  are  well-behaved  and  inconspicuously  demure,  like 
Claribel  of  After  All.  Yet,  later  on,  Miss  Brown  was 
to  show  her  sympathy  with  girlhood  in  The  Secret  of 
the  Clan  (1912). 

If  Miss  Brown's  mental  attitude  challenges  com 
parisons  with  that  of  George  Eliot,  her  characters 
bring  back  memories  of  Cranford.  Deacon  Pitts,  men 
tioned  in  Do  or  yards,  prefatory  sketch  in  Tiverton 
Tales,  had  a  ghoulish  delight  in  funerals.  This  morn 
ing  the  butcher  had  brought  him  news  of  death  in  a 
neighboring  town.  Suddenly,  as  he  turned  back  to 
ward  the  house,  bearing  a  pan  of  liver,  his  pondering 
eye  caught  sight  of  his  aged  wife  toiling  across  the 
fields.  "He  set  down  his  pan  and  made  a  trumpet  of 
his  hands.  'Sarah !'  he  called  piercingly.  'Sarah!  Mr. 
Amasa  Blake's  passed  away !  Died  yesterday !'  "  Who 
can  forget  the  Cranford  lady,  threatened  to  surrender 
by  a  fit  of  coughing,  her  delicious  morsel  of  gossip! 
And  if  the  gentleman  evokes  the  thought,  "At  least 
Tiverton  is  not  composed  altogether  of  Amazons!" 
still  he  betrays  his  kinship  with  the  females  of  Mrs. 
Gaskell's  species. 

Tiverton  Tales  can  hardly  be  described  as  elaborat 
ing  the  sentiment  of  love;  yet  the  greater  number  of 
them  embody  the  passion  as  it  slighted  or  glanced  at 
or  enveloped  her  people.  The  Mortuary  Chest,  most 


ALICE  BROWN-  13 

delightful  of  the  series,  introduces  the  elderly  maiden 
and  her  old  lover — the  clergyman  who  had  married 
elsewhere  and  who  now  recalls  the  past  with  his  first 
love;  Horn  o'  the  Moon  presents  Doctor  Mary,  self- 
appointed  to  nurse  Johnnie  Veasey,  and  left  forlorn 
when  Johnnie  goes  away  to  marry  the  other  girl;  A 
Stolen  Festival,  which  tells  something  about  the  first 
wedding  anniversary  of  Letty  and  David,  betrays  his 
forgetfulness  of  the  day,  Letty's  pitiful  attempt  to 
celebrate,  and  her  early  schooling  to  the  difference 
between  the  ways  of  men  and  women;  A  Last  Assem 
bling,  comparable  only  to  Miss  Wilkins's  A  New  Eng 
land  Nun,  with  a  glint  of  Cornelia  Comer's  Long  In 
heritance  threading  through  it,  psychologizes  the  re 
fusal  of  Dilly  to  marry  Jethro  after  many  years;  A 
Second  Marriage  unmistakably  reveals  the  hidden 
springs  of  Amelia's  decision  not  to  marry  the  love  of 
her  boyhood,  Laurie  Morse. 

But  the  most  individual  story  in  the  volume  is  The 
Way  of  Peace,  which  recounts  the  sorrow  of  a  daugh 
ter  for  her  mother  and  her  successful  attempt  to  im 
personate  that  mother.  When  she  saw  herself  in  the 
mirror  she  was  comforted.  And  her  way  of  peace  was 
assured  when  the  youngest  of  her  nephews  and  nieces 
crept  up  to  her  and  asked,  "Grandma,  when'd  you  get 
well?"  Pathological  and  nostalgic,  perhaps,  but  saved 
by  its  uncompromising  honesty. 

In  making  a  study  of  Alice  Brown's  development, 
her  novels  and  other  works  should  be  taken  into  ac- 


14          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

count.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  present  comment 
must  omit  them,  with  only  suggestions  here  and  there, 
which  may  be  traced  out  to  the  fuller  completion  of 
the  tapestry. 

Her  early  story-writing  was  diversified,  then,  by  a 
historical  study,  Mercy  Otis  Warren,  in  connection 
with  which  she  did  much  research  work  acquainting 
herself  fully  with  the  revolutionary  era.  A  volume 
of  poems,  The  Road  to  Castaly,  also  marks  her  pro 
ductivity  before  1900.  King's  End  and  Margaret 
Warrener  were  published  in  1901. 

The  volume  of  stories  succeeding  Tiverton  Tales 
marks  a  distinct  change  in  her  subject-matter  and  her 
method,  or  more  accurately  a  reversion  to  the  novelette 
experiment,  The  Day  of  His  Youth.  In  High  Noon 
(1904)  sentiment  is  pronounced  and  increased,  love 
dominates,  and  the  business  of  marriage  provokes  the 
author's  analytical  powers.  Admirers  confessed  of 
Miss  Brown's  work,  we  think  it  not  too  harsh  to  say 
that  such  stories  as  The  Book  of  Love  are  Myrtle 
Reedian,  at  best — in  the  language  of  the  hero,  Graham 
— "a  kind  of  divine  nonsense."  A  Meeting  in  the 
Market  Place,  His  Enemy,  Natalie  Blayne,  A  Run 
away  Match,  Rosamund  in  Heaven,  The  Miracle,  The 
Map  of  the  Country,  and  The  End  of  the  Game  all  are 
permeated  by  a  scientific  sentimental  interest  in  love. 
The  disappointed,  the  hope  of  union  after  death,  the 
adjustment  of  temperaments,  the  salvation  through 
service  of  those  love  has  passed  by — these  and  similar 


ALICE  BROWN  15 

themes  constitute  the  illuminatingly  subjective  side  of 
the  volume. 

Prominent  among  her  characters,  now,  are  literary 
men  and  women.  Her  own  attitude  is  more  consciously 
literary.  The  title,  High  Noon,  she  follows  out  by  a 
proverb  from  the  Persian,  "One  instant  only  is  the  sun 
at  noon,"  and  indicates  thereby  her  recognition  of  the 
crucial  moment.  She  is  studying  the  nature  of  the 
short-story  and  short-story  writers.  In  The  End  of 
the  Game  she  speaks  of  the  short-story  as  "perfect  of 
form  and  sonnet-like  in  finish,"  mentions  Prosper 
Merimee — the  earliest  of  conte  writers — and  concludes 
The  End  of  the  Game  in  a  Lady-or-Tiger  manner, 
which  certainly  points  to  study  of  Stockton.  Her  lo 
cal  color,  save  for  the  marsh,  is  disappearing.  The 
best  of  the  lot  is  Natalie  Blayne,  in  that  it  is  more 
objective  and  is  possessed  of  sufficient  humor  to  re 
deem  the  sentiment  elsewhere  overstrained. 

In  The  County  Road  ( 1906)  the  author  returns  to 
her  country  folk  but  creates  with  a  noticeably  freer 
hand  than  in  Meadow  Grass  and  Tiverton  Tales.  In 
ten  years  her  Tiverton  friends  have  advanced,  with 
the  rest  of  the  world.  Blue  coverlets  still  exist,  but 
the  book  telling  how  to  make  them  Cynthia  of  Bache 
lor's  Fancy  finds  in  the  attic.  Nancy  of  the  masculine 
pipe  and  tobacco  still  wanders,  Sudleigh  stage  runs, 
and  shoe-binding  continues.  But  she  looks  forward, 
not  backward.  Her  young  people  meet  on  nearly  equal 
terms  with  the  old  folk.  It  is  true  that  Abigail  and 


16          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Jonathan  in  A  Day  Off  are  the  protagonists  and  their 
daughter  plays  a  secondary  role,  but  the  daughter  pro 
vides  causation  for  the  mother's  acts  throughout.  It 
is  also  true  that  Old  Immortality,  the  most  distinctive 
story  in  the  volume,  has  an  old  couple  for  its  chief 
actors.  But  A  Winter's  Courting,  The  Looking  Glass, 
The  Twisted  Tree,  and  Bachelor's  Fancy  have  for 
heroines  young  and  beautiful  women.  If  her  study  of 
love  is  still  pathological,  it  is  also  more  sane  and  hope 
ful.  By  logical  growth  and  development  Miss  Brown 
uses  old  scenes  in  a  novel  way.  Her  temperament  has 
become  pronounced  and  her  art  has  advanced  at  the 
expense  of  locale.  The  creator  has  displaced  the  copy 
ist.  Oddly  enough,  the  sea  has  gained  hold  upon  Miss 
Brown.  Cynthia  of  Elephant's  Mountain,  worn  thread 
bare,  obsessed  by  her  husband's  much  greasing  of  his 
boots,  leaves  the  country  and  takes  refuge  with  her 
sister  by  the  sea.  The  scene  is  Fastnet,  and  the  Cap 
tain  of  the  tale  is  one  after  Miss  Jewett's  order. 

Her  dramatic  power  has  grown.  A  Day  Off,  for 
example,  is  constructed  in  scenes,  the  action  of  which 
is  developed  through  dialogue.  Her  characters  stand 
on  their  own  feet,  here  as  in  the  other  stories. 

She  elaborates  her  theories  of  soul-communion.  The 
Cave  of  Adullam  emphasizes  the  joy  of  living  in  spirit 
beside  the  heart's  love;  Bankrupt  (of  Meadow  Grass) 
is  its  prototype.  Miss  Lucretia  of  one  is  Dorcas  of  the 
other  in  a  similar  situation. 

A  new  note  of  allegory  enters  The  County  Road, 


ALICE  BROWN  17 

extended  in  her  subsequent  stories.  Sylvia  of  The 
Twisted  Tree  in  her  sick-soul  condition  is  obsessed  with 
the  idea  that  the  tree  symbolizes  herself.  (O.  Henry 
touched  the  theme  in  The  Last  Leaf).  Haven,  who 
loves  Sylvia,  grafts  new  shoots  upon  the  tree;  Sylvia 
recovers.  It  is  worth  while  following  out  Miss 
Brown's  interest  in  this  motif  as  expressed  in  A  Home 
spun  Wizardry  (Harper's,  October,  1913)  and  A  Mind 
Cure  (Harper's,  August,  1914). 

We  have  emphasized  the  beginning  of  Miss  Brown's 
work,  for  in  it  lies  the  germ  of  all  her  subsequent 
development.  We  may  pass  over  Country  Neighbors 
(1910),  The  One-Footed  Fairy  and  Other  Stories 
(1911)  and  study  her  perfect  orientation  in  Vanishing 
Points  (1913).  This  collection  was  also  preceded  by 
her  novels,  Rose  McLeod  and  Paradise. 

Her  setting  may  be,  now,  Boston  or  Darjheeling; 
her  characters  may  be  young,  middle-aged  or  old ;  they 
may  be  curates,  editors  or  autocrats  of  civic  affairs; 
they  may  be  Aunt  Harriets  of  Overland,  or  Elisha 
Persons  of  commercial  circles.  She  may  set  her  stage 
for  men,  alone,  as  she  does  in  The  Master — one  of  the 
best  "man"  stories  ever  written  by  a  woman;  for  the 
actors  in  young  love,  as  in  The  Discovery  or  The 
Flight  of  the  Mouse;  for  millionaires  and  journalists, 
as  in  The  Lantern.  She  may  write  in  the  person  of  a 
man-narrator  or  as  the  camera-author.  It  matters 
not.  Her  people  act  and  interact  so  as  to  give  the 
illusion  of  life. 


i8          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

She  breasts  out  against  new  subjects,  swimming  with 
the  times.  She  makes,  for  instance,  a  case  of  social 
theories  and  practices  in  The  Man  in  the  Cloister  and 
concludes  that  human  kindness  is  the  solution  of  the 
problem  presented.  She  has  advanced  in  the  plot  or 
"fable."  She  has  a  story  to  tell,  not  merely  a  thesis 
to  illustrate,  a  "character"  to  hit  off.  She  is  adept  at 
creating  suspense,  pause,  climax ;  she  weaves  the  fabric 
of  her  plot  by  clues  and  forecast  and  their  fulfillment. 
Whole  scenes  may  be  lifted  and  acted  on  the  stage  with 
but  slight  changes  for  "directions."  In  The  Master, 
for  example,  the  table  scene ;  in  The  Lantern,  the  scene 
between  Porson  and  the  Marshalls.  She  is  not  always 
skillful  with  coincidence;  the  double  one  in  The  Clue 
will  strain  the  reader's  credulity.  So  the  poor  archi 
tecture  of  The  House  With  the  Tower  (Harper's,  May, 
1914),  is  righted  by  a  storm  that  rises  all  too  easily. 
But  she  apologizes  for  coincidence  in  a  later  volume: 
"It  is  true  that  the  most  extraordinary  and  exact  co 
incidences  happen,  as  if  pieces  in  the  mosaic  of  life, 
made  to  fit  together  in  some  mysterious  forecast  of 
destiny,  rush  toward  each  other  and  are  finally 
joined."*  Perhaps  she  is  colder  and  remoter  in  some 
of  her  later  tales.  If  so,  the  reason  lies  largely  in  the 
truth  that  she  leaves  her  characters  to  declare  them 
selves  :  the  story  is  more  objective  than  her  earlier 
and  comparatively  subjective  interpretations. 

March  21,  1913,  Winthrop  Ames,  of  The  Little 
*  The  Flying  Teuton,  page  48. 


ALICE  BROWN  19 

Theatre,  New  York,  inaugurated  a  drama  contest. 
One  thousand  six  hundred  and  forty-six  plays  were 
submitted.  In  1914,  the  award  of  ten  thousand  dol 
lars  was  made  to  Alice  Brown  for  Children  of  Earth. 
It  is  not  a  good  acting  play,  as  the  published  version 
may  show  to  those  who  did  not  see  it  while  on  the 
boards.  But  the  fidelity  to  New  England  life  is  not 
less  than  that  evinced  in  Meadow  Grass  and  Tlverton 
Tales;  it  is  imaginative  and  poetic.  It  illustrates  in 
its  non-success  the  paradox  that  some  of  the  most 
dramatic  story-writers  fall  short  on  the  actual  stage. 

The  Flying  Teuton  (1918),  following  Bromley 
Neighborhood  and  The  Prisoner,  carries  on  the  method 
of  Vanishing  Points,  with  an  emphasis  upon  the  super 
natural.  She  had  already  touched  it  in  The  Tryst  and 
There  and  Here  of  High  Noon.  Her  Tryst  of  the 
Flying  Teuton  is  the  companion  piece  of  the  former 
Tryst  in  that  the  earlier  story  looks  mystically  into  the 
future  and  the  life  beyond,  while  the  later  illustrates  the 
theory  of  transmigration  of  souls  and  hints  at  remote 
pasts  of  two  who  meet  in  Paestum.  The  Flying  Teu 
ton,  the  story  lending  its  name  to  the  book,  is  a  sort 
of  modern  Flying-Dutchman  that  has  been  classed 
among  the  great  short-stories  produced  by  the  World 
War.  A  Citizen  and  His  Wife  is  not  far  behind  it — 
a  spy  story  combined  with  a  unique  love  motive:  a 
traitor  is  betrayed  by  his  wife  who  loved  him  only  a 
little  less  than  her  country.  The  Island  emphasizes 
Miss  Brown's  favorite  thesis,  that  life  and  love  are 


20          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

continuous  in  a  vast  and  beautiful  way,  touched  long 
before  in  A  Meeting  in  the  Market-Place  (High  Noon). 
It  conceives  the  ideal  as  one  where  Keats's  magic  case 
ments  are  part  of  the  mansion  of  the  soul,  where 
Shelly's  Skylark  is  real  and  where  invisible  colonies 
reach  out  to  aid  England.  It  is  but  a  step  from  this 
story  content  to  The  Wind  Between  the  Worlds  ( 1920) 
and  its  theme  of  whether  or  not  communication  with  the 
dead  is  possible.  It  also  finds  reverberation  in  Old 
Lemuel's  Journey  (Atlantic  Monthly,  June,  1920), 
which  takes  the  dying  man  upon  a  mysterious  visit 
before  his  final  demise. 

A  quarter  century  has  elapsed  between  Miss  Brown's 
first  stories  and  her  latest.  She  has  become  a  citizen 
of  the  world ;  her  story  people  have  become  citizens  of 
the  world.  And  yet  as  a  world-weary  traveler  re 
turns  with  joy  to  his  native  heath,  she  occasionally 
writes  of  her  home  folk.  Her  flavor  is  less  strong  as 
the  cosmopolite  is  less  remarked  than  the  villager. 
There  are  readers  who  prefer  the  meadow  and  Tiverr- 
ton,  those  who  prefer  the  denizens  of  the  world — burn 
ing  laurel  leaves,  idly  for  ceremonial,  pasting  book 
plates  in  volumes  newly  arrived  from  England,  telling 
stories  in  French  and  referring  easily  to  "roses  from 
Paestan  rosaries."  It  is  perhaps  a  trifle  to  be  lamented 
that  some  of  us  like  the  author  so  well  in  all  her  phases 
we  cannot  tell  which  Alice  Brown  we  fain  would  see 
immortal.  But  we  are  content  to  leave  all  her  works 
on  the  knees  of  the  gods. 


ALICE  BROWN  21 

Volumes  of  stories  by  Miss  Brown: 

Meadow  Grass,  1895. 
Tiverton  Tales,  1899. 
1    High  Noon,  1904. 
-   The  County  Road,  1906. 
Country  Neighbors,  1910. 
The  One-Footed  Fairy,  1911. 
^x  Vanishing  Points,  1913. 
Teuton,  1918. 


CHAPTER  II 

JAMES   BRANCH    CABELL 

IN  The  Cream  of  the  Jest,  Chapter  VI,  Mr.  James 
Branch  Cabell  writes:  "Besides,  it  was  droll  to 
read  the  'literary  notes'  which  the  Baxon-Muir 
people  were  industriously  disseminating,  by  means  of 
the  daily  journals,  concerning  Felix  Kennaston's  per 
sonality,   ancestry,   accomplishments,    recreations  and 
preferences  in  diet.     And  then,  in  common  with  the 
old  woman  famed  in  nursery  rhyme,  he  was  very  often 
wont  to  observe,  'But  lawk  a  mercy  on  me!  This  is 
none  of  I !'  " 

Tentative  conclusions  reached  in  this  article  might 
prompt  Mr.  Cabell  to  reiterate  the  rhyme  with  respect 
to  himself.  His  readers  see  him  differently;  and  since 
he  has  reminded  us  of  the  sardonic  point  of  every 
human  story,  that  "the  person  you  or  I  find  in  the 
mirror  is  condemned  eternally  to  misrepresent  us  in  the 
eyes  of  our  fellows,"  he  will  assuredly  not  find  himself 
in  this  particular  mirror  perfectly  and  whole.  But 
it  would  be  labor  well  worth  the  pains  to  effect  a  brief 
appreciation  that  Mr.  Cabell  might  notice  with  ap 
proval  however  reserved,  one  that  revealed  a  modicum 

22 


JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL       23 

of  understanding  of  his  artistic  problems  and  his  solu 
tion  of  them,  or  that  evinced  apprehension  of  what  he 
is  saying  through  his  novels  and  short  stories. 

That  he  says  impeccably  his  say  is  indisputable; 
that  he  says  it  for  only  a  few  is  undebatable,  though 
this  limitation — provided  the  few  be  of  a  definite 
class  of  readers— is  one  he  seeks.  It  is  perhaps  to  be 
regretted  that  he  cannot  express  himself  for  a  large 
number.  They,  though  unaware,  need  him.  But  he 
is  unintelligible  to  many  readers  who  are  intelligent; 
he  is  dismissed  by  many  who  are  scholars  without  in 
terest  in  narrative,  the  medium  which  transmutes  Mr. 
Cabell's  acquisition  of  fact  into  art.  He  is,  in  short, 
enjoyed  only  by  those  who  possess  a  certain  scholar 
ship  plus  a  but  slightly  secondary  interest  in  fiction 
plus  a  mental  kinship  that  recognizes  the  aptness  of 
his  means.  "Leave  hope  behind"  might  be  inscribed 
for  all  others  who  seek  to  enter ;  for  to  them  his  Para 
dise  is  metamorphosed,  in  veiy  truth,  to  an  Inferno. 

Lest  we  seem  to  set  ourselves  high  among  the  elect, 
let  us  state  with  all  frankness  that  at  times  we  are 
in  doubt  whether  we  wander  in  fields  of  asphodel  or 
are  caught  in  a  mirage  of  delusion,  scorned  while  we 
admire.  The  legend,  "Thou  fool !"  may  face  us ;  but 
we  fondly  fancy  it  leers  at  the  traveler  far  behind.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Cabell  desires  "to  write  perfectly  of  beautiful 
happenings,"  and  the  intensity  of  this  desire  burns 
purposefully  throughout  his  works.  He  knows,  as 
every  artist  knows,  that  art  has  beauty  for  its  province. 


24          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

But  he  has  outstripped  most  of  his  brother-craftsmen 
in  pursuing  that  ideal  beauty  all  artists  follow  after. 
He  might  have  expanded,  consciously,  Poe's  theories 
in  The  Philosophy  of  Composition  were  it  not  that 
he  independently  discovered  the  truth.     As  Poe  knew 
that  for  harmony  of  effect  beauty  is  best  allied  with 
the  passion  of  love,  so  Mr.  Cabell  knows.     He  cites 
Gautier's  words  to  the  point  that  "everything  passes 
but    art,"    and   he    enumerates    clarity,    beauty    and 
symmetry  among  the  auctorial  virtues  that  contribute 
to  literary  permanence.    To  these,  he  adds  tenderness, 
truth  and  urbanity.    The  great  body  of  his  work  cele 
brates  undying  love  and  imperishable  beauty. 

This  love  which  he  celebrates  he  figures  through  Mr. 
Erwyn,  in  Love  at  Martinmas  (Gallantry)  :  "Dear 
lady,  surely  you  would  not  confound  amour  with  love  ? 
Believe  me,  the  translation  is  inadequate.  Amour  is 
but  the  summer  wave  that  lifts  and  glitters  and  laughs 
in  the  sunlight,  and  within  the  instant  disappears ;  but 
love  is  the  unfathomed  eternal  sea  itself."  And  this 
beauty  he  celebrates  is  the  soul  of  beauty.  It  is  what 
Ettarre  meant  to  Kennaston :  "And  it  is  the  cream  of 
a  vile  jest  that  I  am 'forbidden  ever  to  win  quite  to 
you,  ever  to  touch  you,  ever  to  see  you  even  save  in 
my  dreams!" 

His  world  of  Art  is,  therefore,  not  the  real  world. 
In  Beyond  Life  he  says,  "Really  there  should  be  no 
trifling  with  facts,  for  always  the  ever  present  danger 
exists  that,  in  treating  of  the  life  immediately  about 


JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL      25 

him,  even  the  unobservant  literary  genius  may  notice 
that  this  life  for  the  most  part  consists  of  ugly  and 
stupid  persons  doing  foolish  things,  and  will  take  a 
despondent  view  of  the  probable  outcome." 

Again,  Charteris  surely  speaks  for  him  in  The  Lady 
of  all  Our  Dreams  (The  Certain  Hour).  Charteris 
confesses  to  having  made  some  joyous  tales  which 
"prevaricate  tenderly  about  the  universe  and  veil  the 
pettiness  of  human  nature  with  screens  of  verbal  jewel- 
work. 

"It  is  not  the  actual  world  they  tell  about,  but  a 
vastly  superior  place  where  the  Dream  is  realized 
and  everything  which  we  knew  was  possible  comes  true. 
It  is  a  world  we  have  all  glimpsed,  just  once,  and  have 
not  entered,  and  have  not  ever  forgotten."  .  .  .  And 
once  more,  "I  was  born  with  the  desire  to  make  beauti 
ful  books— brave  books,  that  would  preserve  the  glories 
of  the  Dream  untarnished,  and  would  recreate  them  for 
battered  people,  and  re-awaken  joy  and  magnanimity/' 
Ideal  Beauty,  Ideal  Love,  and  a  Dream  World  be 
long  to  the  romanticist.  And  it  is  through  his  concepts 
of  these  terms  and  the  exercise  of  his  talents  with 
them  that  James  Branch  Cabell  overtops  to-day  all 
other  romantic  writers  in  America. 

To  watch  his  progress,  to  trace  it  through  his  works, 
is  to  observe  how  he  cast  off  shackle  after  shackle  of 
limitation,  to  ultimate  unhampered  movement  over  the 
earth,  in  the  zenith  that  is  Heaven  or  the  pit  that  is 
Hell. 


26          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

In  The  Eagle's  Shadow  (1904),  he  sought  to  escape 
the  world  of  fact  by  intrusions  into  the  land  of  fancy. 
But  it  was  insufficient  for  his  needs — this  land  peopled 
with  imaginary  folk  of  the  present.  By  entering  the 
door  of  the  past  he  removed  himself  further  from  the 
actual.  From  historical  data  he  wove  fictive  tapestries 
of  dreams  figuring  Francois  de  Montcorbier,  Sir  John 
Falstaff,  the  gay  Falmouths  and  the  noble  Puysanges. 
Those  tales  he  gathered  up  after  their  appearance  in 
Harper's  Magazine,  covering  a  period  of  some  three 
years,  in  The  Line  of  Love  (1905).  But  he  essayed 
a  more  difficult  task.  He  turned  to  a  past  between 
the  late  middle  ages  and  the  present,  and  recreated  the 
era  of  the  Second  George  of  England.  It  is  true  that 
he  modestly  disclaims,  by  suggestion,  what  he  has  at 
tempted  to  do ;  but  his  success  is  the  more  pronounced. 
In  the  Epistle  Dedicatory  he  quotes  Thackeray,  "I  have 
said,  Show  me  some  good  person  about  that  Court; 
find  me,  among  those  selfish  courtiers,  those  dissolute 
gay  people,  some  one  being  that  I  can  love  and  regard," 
and  he  hints  at  hesitating  to  try  that  wherein  the  giant 
failed.  He  says,  further,  in  the  Epilogue,  that  his  pic 
tures  of  that  time,  "Aim  little  at  the  lofty  and  sub 
lime."  .  .  . 

"He  merely  strove  to  find 
And  fix  a  faithful  likeness  of  mankind 
About  its  daily  business — and  secure 
Far  less  a  portrait  than  a  miniature." 


JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL      27 

At  first  blush,  then,  it  would  appear  that  he  had 
abandoned  idealism  for  realism  or  at  best  a  dissolute 
reality.  Let  not  his  speciousness  betray  you!  Read, 
instead,  Simon's  Hour,  and  marvel  at  the  sacrificial 
act  of  the  debauched  vicar  who  died  for  the  lady  he 
had  loved;  or  In  the  Second  April,  and  thrill  at  the 
parlous  adventures  Jean  Bulmer,  otherwise  the  Duke 
of  Ormskirk,  endured  for  the  Lady  Claire;  or  The 
Scapegoats,  and  know  the  heart  of  the  old  Prince  de 
Gatinais,  who  so  loved  France  that  he  murdered  his 
son's  love,  Nelchen,  and  then,  having  prayed  that  for 
his  crime  he  might  dwell  eternally  in  the  nethermost 
pit  of  hell,  ended  his  own  life  with  the  same  poison- 
brew. 

But  Mr.  Cabell  found  the  age  of  gallantry  insuf 
ficient  to  his  needs— whether  he  had  exploited  it  by  way 
of  "taking  a  dare"  or  for  contrast.  He  reverted  to  the 
remoter  past,  where  he  found  greater  satisfaction,  and 
published,  in  Harper's,  from  1905  to  1908,  a  series  of 
masterpieces  later  collected  under  the  appropriate  title, 
Chivalry  ( 1909) .  The  science  of  love,  the  art  of  versi 
fying,  the  making  of  chansons,  the  pleasant  custom  of 
singing  sestinas  or  tensons  beneath  the  window  of  the 
fair,  the  jongleur  disguise  assumed  by  princes  and 
kings  that  they  may  woo  for  their  own  sakes  the  ladies 
they  would  serve,  the  trappings  and  the  local  color  of 
the  age — all  this  he  has  subordinated  to  his  purpose : 
the  relation  of  beautiful  happenings. 

Yet,  after  two  volumes  of  stories  and  part  of  a 


28          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

third,  setting  forth  this  age  in  a  chain  of  poignantly 
beautiful  climaxes,  he  found  it  inadequate.  He  had 
tried  the  romance  of  the  imaginary  in  the  present  time, 
of  the  imaginary  in  past  time ;  there  was  left  to  him  the 
romance  of  a  world  imagined  by  the  past.  What  the 
vision  and  the  dream  meant  to  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth, 
Robert  of  Wace,  and  Sir  Thomas  Mallory;  what  the 
worlds  peopled  by  their  own  creation  meant  to  them 
they  have  meant,  and  more,  to  James  Branch  Cabell, 
who  but  for  the  grace  of  God  might  have  been  compeer 
to  him  who  wrote  Gawain  and  the  Green  Knight,  or 
to  those  who  perfected  the  tale  of  Tristram  and  Iseult 
and  knew  the  City  of  Camelot.  But  here  he  is.  And 
whether  he  is  a  reincarnation  of  Shakespearian  wis 
dom,  of  Chaucerian  cynical  humor  and  Puckish  malice, 
or  whether  he  is  properly  of  the  twentieth  century  is 
beside  the  point.  Praise  be,  he  is  ours ! 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Cabell's  mystic 
concept  sees  reality  in  the  dream,  even  as  it  recognizes 
in  reality  a  mysticism  all  its  own.  Felix  Kennaston's 
reflections  convey  as  much,  and  in  a  manner  that  in 
evitably  carries  conviction  they  are  the  author's.  He 
penetrates  to  the  heart  of  the  vague  feeling  that  art 
is  irreligious.  Only  in  the  passing  moment,  he  reminds 
himself,  and  through  its  evanescent  emotions  and  sen 
sations  is  man  brought  into  contact  with  reality.  The 
ideal  of  religion  is  disregard  of  the  present.  But  art 
strives  to  make  the  sensation  of  a  moment  soul-satis 
fying.  It  performs  what  religion  promises.  .  .  . 


JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL  29 

He  is  sensitive  to  the  fact  that  the  artist's  life  is 
seldom  regarded  seriously.  It  is,  perhaps,  this  recog 
nition  which  lends  to  his  latest  works  an  increasing 
cynicism  acquired  at  no  loss  of  his  ideal.  "You  would 
be  at  one  with  all  fat-witted  people",  he  asserts,  "if 
you  concede  that  the  perfection  of  any  art  ...  is 
at  best  a  by-product  of  life's  conduct."  He  asseverates 
that  phrase-spinning  is  the  most  profitless  of  all  pur 
suits.  He  observes  in  The  Lady  of  All  Our  Dreams: 
"Fairhaven  was  proud  of  John  Charteris  now  that  his 
colorful  tales  had  risen  from  the  semi-oblivion  of  being 
cherished  merely  by  people  who  cared  seriously  for 
beautiful  things,  to  the  distinction  of  being  purchasable 
in  railway  stations."  And  in  April's  Message  the  Earl 
apologetically  remarks:  "I  do  not  understand  poetry. 
It  appears  to  me  unreasonable  to  advance  a  statement 
simply  because  it  happens  to  rhyme  with  a  statement 
you  have  previously  made." 

But  the  artist  is,  because  he  must  be.  In  The  Sec 
ond  April,  Jean  Bulmer  remarks :  "In  every  man  as  I 
now  see  quite  plainly,  there  is  a  god.  And  the  god 
must  judge,  and  the  man  himself  be  but  the  temple 
and  the  instrument  of  the  god.  And  whether  to  go 
to  church  or  no  is  a  matter  of  trivial  importance  so 
long  as  the  man  obey  the  god  which  is  within  him." 
However  great  the  exactions  of  art,  he  will  meet  them 
because  of  the  god.  These  exactions  mean  sacrifice 
of  time  and  friends.  Even  Shakespeare  suffered  from 
realization  of  the  fact,  "Lord  what  a  deal  of  ruined  life 


30          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

it  takes  to  make  a  little  art!"  (Judith's  Creed).  And 
latter-day  John  Charteris  says,  "My  books,  such  as 
they  are,  have  been  made  at  the  dear  price  of  never 
permitting  myself  to  care  seriously  for  anything  else. 
I  might  not  dare  to  dissipate  my  energies  by  taking 
any  part  in  the  drama  I  was  attempting  to  re-write, 
because  I  must  jealously  conserve  all  the  force  that  was 
in  me  for  the  perfection  of  my  version."  He  served 
his  dream  and  he  got  his  books ;  but  at  the  expense  of 
"fifteen  years  of  human  living  and  human  intimacy." 
Charteris  admits  they  are  hardly  worth  so  much;  but 
it  was  necessary  to  obey  the  god  within  him ;  he  must 
have  done  so  had  he  known  they  were  worth  far  less. 
So  it  was,  by  this  obedience,  Mr.  Cabell  wrote 
Jurgen.  In  this  return  to  the  dream  world  of  the  past 
he  accepts  Guinevere,  let  us  say,  as  a  real  personage. 
Heaven  and  Hell  as  actual  kingdoms.  But  in  his 
scorn  of  illusions  that  satisfied  the  earlier  dreamers,  he 
practises  his  casual  cynicism  even  while  he  tells  the 
story  artistically  as  he  may.  Jurgen  becomes  for  some 
of  us,  then,  not  the  positive  expression  of  beauty  that 
some  critics  declare  it  to  be;  but  a  vent  for  feelings 
that  turn  in  revulsion  from  old  and  false  ideals.  Or, 
paradoxically,  it  is  beautiful  in  so  far  as  it  destroys 
decrepit  foundations  to  make  way  for  new  towers  of 
the  spirit.  Tenderness  remains,  however,  with  the 
cynicism;  for  Jurgen  avoided  that  "part  of  Heaven 
wherein  were  his  grandmother's  illusions;  and  this 
was  accounted  for  righteousness  in  Jurgen.  That  part 


JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL      31 

of  Heaven  smelt  of  mignonette,  and  a  starling  was 
singing  there." 

So,  finally,  fulfilment  of  all  ideals  lies  "beyond  life" 
.,  .  .  "The  Universe  was  life's  big  barren  studio, 
which  the  Artist  certainly  had  neither  planned  nor 
builded,  but  had,  somehow,  occupied  to  make  the  best 
of  its  limitation."  So  Kennaston  reflected,  and  so  the 
author,  through  him,  envisions  all  life  as  a  struggle  to 
artistic  attainment :  "Living  may  become  symmetrical, 
well-plotted,  coherent  and  rational"  .  .  .  But  the  day 
is  not  yet. 

To  be  a  renowned  story  teller  forms  only  a  part 
of  Mr.  Cabell's  ambition.  Therefore,  he  easily  com 
passes  perfection  in  the  art,  around  which  he  has 
struck  a  circle  so  much  greater.  More  specifically,  in 
The  Line  of  Love  he  attains  the  first  requirements  of 
the  modern  raconteur.  He  entertains  by  detailing  a 
struggle  or  conflict  (motivated  by  love,  having  its 
climax  in  love,  in  conformity  with  his  artistic  prin 
ciple),  satisfying  the  reader  by  the  sense  of  finish  only 
with  his  final  word.  Even  in  these  early  stories  the 
hand  of  the  'prentice  is  guided  by  unmistakable  genius ; 
and  although  he  is  obviously  indebted  to  predecessors, 
his  own  contribution  is  no  less  patent. 

The  Love-letters  of  Falstaff  reveals  him  an  artist  in 
contrasts.  Sir  John,  as  he  himself  admits,  is  without 
honor ;  his  face  is  bloated ;  his  habits  are  vulgar.  But 
he  recalls  the  time,  under  the  stimulus  of  Sylvia 
Vernon's  visit,  when  "I  was  wont  to  sigh  like  a  leaky 


32          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

bellows;  to  weep  like  a  wench  that  hath  lost  her 
grandam;  to  lard  my  speech  with  the  fag-ends  of  bal 
lads  like  a  man  milliner;  and,  indeed,  indite  sonnets, 
canzonets,  and  what  not  of  mine  own."  In  this  memory 
sounds  the  strain  of  the  Bard  of  Avon,  transmitted 
through  James  Branch  Cabell.  Reminiscent  of  Sonnet 
LXIII  are  the  following  lines,  extracted  from  a  poem 
ostensibly  by  Sir  John: 

"For  without  thy  door 

Now  stands  with  dolorous  cry  and  clamoring 
Faint-hearted   love,   that  there  hath  stood  of   yore. 
Though  winter  draweth  on,  and  no  birds  sing 
Within  the  woods,  yet  as  in  wanton  spring 
He  follows  thee  and  never  will  have  done, 
Though  nakedly  he  die,  from  following 
Whither  thou  leadest." 

Even  the  wreck  that  was  Sir  John  had  dwelt  in 
Arcady;  and  Mr.  Cabell's  art  restores  that  period  of 
love  and  beauty.  .  .  . 

The  best  of  this  lot  of  impartially  French  and  Eng 
lish  backgrounds  is  In  Necessity's  Mortar,  which  chal 
lenges  comparison  with  Stevenson's  A  Lodging  for  the 
Night.  Yet,  notwithstanding  that  Mr.  Cabell  profited 
by  the  older  writer's  work,  his  own  narrative  is  su 
perior.  He  retails  the  mutual  love  of  Francois  Villon 
and  Catherine  de  Vaucelles.  Having  left  her  one 
evening,  Francois  was  attacked  by  Gilles  Raguyer, 


JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL       33 

egged  on  by  Ysabeau  Montigny.  Ysabeau's  charge 
was  unfounded,  but  so  much  the  worse  for  Francois. 
Back  to  the  wall  he  fought,  finally  killing  one  of  his 
antagonists.  The  result  was  outlawry  and  his  oath 
to  drag  the  name  of  Villon  in  the  dust.  The  years 
spent  with  the  swine,  suggested  in  the  final  scene  with 
Catherine,  work  to  an  inevitable  end.  No  one  who 
has  read  the  tale  can  forget  Francois's  pleading  with 
Catherine,  to  kill  her  love  for  him — because  he  knows 
he  is  not  worthy — nor  his  success.  When  he  sees 
loathing  supplant  love  in  her  eyes,  he  goes.  And  then, 
outside,  he  falls  on  his  knees.  "Dear  God,"  he  prays, 
"let  me  not  live  long."  .  .  . 

This  first  volume  makes  use  of  all  the  romanticist's 
tools :  in  Ursula's  Garden  and  The  Conspiracy  of 
Arnaye  disguise  is  the  chief  means  of  interesting  the 
reader.  The  Castle  of  Content  rests  its  dramatic  climax 
upon  the  burning  of  papers  which  would  have  estab 
lished  Tom  Allonby's  title  as  Marquis  of  Falmouth.  In 
most  of  the  stories  the  lovers  surrender  wealth,  fair 
name  or  life — or  all — for  the  ladies  they  serve.  Mr. 
Cabell's  types  of  heroine,  which  persist  in  his  later  writ 
ings,  are  becoming  established.  They  have  an  abund 
ance  of  corn-colored,  honey-colored,  or  golden  hair; 
their  eyes  are  sapphires  or  emerald-green,  or  sea-green ; 
their  mouths  are  small,  "and  thereto  soft  and  red",  per 
haps  "red  wounds" ;  their  faces  are  of  a  startling  white 
ness;  they  are  unbelievably  slender  and  willowy.  "Rose 
of  all  the  world"  is  a  favorite  comparison,  which,  like- 


34          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

wise,  endures  for  subsequent  works.  Already,  the 
author  has  become  intoxicated  with  the  picture  of  the 
lark  soaring  to  meet  his  love,  the  sun,  and  falling  dizzy 
from  his  divine  passion.  .  .  . 

The  suitors  seek  perfection,  and  presumably  they 
find  it  in  the  ladies  they  valiantly  fetch  off  after  dur 
ance,  tribulation  or  strife: 

"I  am  weary  of  love  that  is  pastime 

And  gifts  that  it  brings! 
I  pray  thee,  O  Lord,  at  this  last  time, 

Ineffable  things   .    .    . " 

So  sings  Raoul,  the  page,  otherwise  Monsieur  de  Puy- 
sange. 

Mr.  Cabell's  stories  are  recalled  through  pictures: 
We  think  of  Katherine,  Princess  of  France,  perched  in 
an  apple-tree,  while  young  Henry  V  looks  up  at  her 
(Chivalry) ;  of  Olivia  and  Wycherley  awaiting  death 
on  the  rock  that  must  be  inundated  by  the  tide;  of 
Francois  Villon's  bleeding  lip.  The  author  is  at  pains 
to  etch  these  pictures :  "Francois  felt  the  piercing  cold 
of  the  steel,  the  tingling  of  it  against  his  teeth,  then 
the  warm  grateful  spurt  of  blood;  through  a  red  mist 
he  saw  Gilles  and  Ysabeau  run  screaming  down  the 
Rue  St.  Jacques."  And  more  recently,  as  Mr.  Cabell 
might  say,  "His  split  lip  was  a  clammy  dead  thing 
that  flapped  against  his  chin  as  he  ran."  So,  In  the 
Second  April  (Gallantry),  one  remembers  that  the 


JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL  35 

Duke  of  Ormskirk  and  the  Lady  Claire  stand  on  the 
tower,  where  he  engages  with  the  brigand  Cazaio.  And 
one  remembers  that  after  a  swift  battle,  the  brigand 
meets  his  doom: 

"Then  his  feet  flipped  upward,  convulsively,  so  that 
John  Bulmer  saw  his  spurs  glitter  and  twitch  in  the 
moonlight,  and  there  was  a  snapping  and  crackling 
and  swishing  among  the  poplars,  and  immediately  the 
slump  of  his  body  upon  the  turf  below." 

Chivalry  pushes  romanticism  to  the  furthest  bounds 
in  making  lovers  of  kings  and  queens,  kings  and  queens 
of  lovers.  These  stories  purport  to  be  told  from  the 
French  of  Nicolas  de  Caen  and  most  of  them  begin: 
"I  abridge,  as  heretofore,  at  discretion;  and  the  result 
is  that  to  the  Norman  cleric  appertains  whatever  the 
tale  may  have  of  merit,  whereas  what  you  find  dis 
tasteful  in  it  you  must  impute  to  my  delinquency  in 
skill  rather  than  in  volition/'  There  is  Alianora,  the 
Queen  of  Henry  III,  whose  wreckage  of  England  led 
to  the  Barons'  War.  The  Sestina  tells  how  she  called 
upon  the  pedant,  Osmund  Heleigh,  brother  to  the  Earl 
of  Brudenel,  and  how  he  brought  her  safely  to  her 
own  place,  then  fell  in  duel  with  Gui  Camoys;  how, 
afterward,  Alianora  became  a  good  queen  reigning  with 
wisdom.  The  Scabbard  relates  an  episode  in  the  his 
tory  of  Richard  II.  He  had  relinquished  England 
and  become  the  playmate  of  the  world;  but  anon  re 
turned  to  the  Welsh  border,  where  he  lived  in  humble 
guise.  There  he  loved  Branwen,  for  whose  sake  he 


36         OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

slew  his  igonminious  rival  and  for  whose  sake  he 
surrendered  the  throne  to  King  Henry.  The  author 
repeats  this  motive  of  surrender  in  a  better  story, 
The  Navarrese,  the  tale  of  Antoine  Riczio  and  Jehane, 
Countess  of  Rougemont,  later  Duchess  of  Brittany, 
later  Queen  of  England,  wife  of  Henry  IV.  But  the 
choice  of  most  readers  of  this  perfectly  wrought  col 
lection  of  beautiful  happenings  is  The  Fox  Brush,  the 
romance  of  Henry  V  and  Katherine  of  France.  Per 
sonally,  we  prefer  The  Housewife,  a  story  of  the  good 
Queen  Philippa,  wife  to  Edward  III.  The  author's 
sense  of  humor  agreeably  emerges  in  the  letter  the 
Queen  writes  her  royal  husband  and,  previously,  in  her 
management  of  Prince  Lionel. 

So   in  this   volume  Mr.    Cabell   approached   more 
nearly  his  ideal.     But  he  begins  to  comprehend  that 
the   Lady   Ettarre  may  not  be  touched  by  mortal 
man  .  .  . 

The  Certain  Hour  (1916)  is  the  latest  volume  of 
this  author's  short  stories.  Its  ten  numbers  are  ar 
ranged  chronologically,  beginning  with  the  year  1210 
and  progressing  by  easy  stages  to  the  present.  The 
first,  Belhs  Cavaliers,  rehearses  in  flawless  narrative 
the  climactic  episode  between  Beatritz,  sister-in-law  of 
William  Prince  of  Orange,  and  her  lover  Raimbaut 
de  Vaquieras.  The  refinement  of  ideal  love  is  vitalized 
in  the  crucial  moment.  He  will  not  permit  her  to 
take  her  own  life,  great  though  the  need ;  for  the  Church 
declares  suicide  a  deadly  sin.  In  order,  therefore,  that 


JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL  37 

he  may  suffer  for  her  throughout  eternity,  he  kneels 
to  beg  her  forgiveness  for  the  act  he  is  about  to  com 
mit.  He  will  kill  her,  and  then  himself.  But  the 
author  prevents  the  extreme  sacrifice  and  gives  the 
lovers  a  happy  end. 

The  reader  will  observe  that  nearly  all  the  characters 
in  this  volume  are  drawn  from  history;  that  love  is 
the  dominant  passion,  as  in  former  collections;  that 
all  the  adventures  are  excursions  in  Beauty.  The  title 
may  indicate  a  growing  interest  in  short  story  tech 
nique;  but  it  was  hardly  necessary  for  Mr.  Cabell  to 
improve  upon  his  art  after  the  initial  The  Line  of  Love. 
One  curious  point  is  that  the  quality  of  Shakespeare's 
passion  is  different  from  that  of  others,  and  that  the 
dedication  of  the  book  is  in  harmony  with  Judith's 
Creed. 

Mr.  Cabell's  discriminating  workmanship  may  best 
be  indicated  by  a  passage  which  reveals,  also,  his  joy 
in  the  working: 

"Kennaston  never  in  his  life  found  any  other  play 
things  comparable  to  those  first  wide-margined  'galley- 
proofs'  of  The  Audit  at  Storisende.  Here  was  the 
word,  vexatiously  repeated  within  three  lines,  which 
must  be  replaced  by  a  synonym ;  and  the  clause  which, 
when  transposed,  made  the  whole  sentence  gain  in 
force  and  comeliness ;  and  the  curt  sentence  whose  ad 
dition  gave  clarity  to  the  paragraph,  much  as  a  pinch 
of  alum  clears  turbid  water;  and  the  vaguely  unsatis 
factory  adjective,  for  which  a  jet  of  inspiration  sug- 


38         OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

gested  a  substitute,  of  vastly  different  meaning,  in 
the  light  of  whose  inevitable  aptness  you  marveled  over 
your  preliminary  obtuseness.  .  .  ." 

It  is  not  by  chance  that  his  earlier  works  challenge 
comparison  with  Maurice  Hewlett's  in  theme  and  man 
ner,  that  sprightly  passages  of  Gallantry  recall  An 
thony  Hope's  Dolly  Dialogues.  He  served  his  ap 
prenticeship,  but  with  swiftness.  It  is  not  by  chance 
that  the  story  in  his  latest  volume  wherein  he  presents 
a  word  artificer  at  his  task  is  a  story  about  William 
Shakespeare.  The  woman  was  "quite  certain  perdur 
able  writing  must  spring  from  a  surcharged  heart, 
rather  than  from  a  re-arrangement  of  phrases/'  But 
the  Master  was  exclaiming  on  a  harsh  and  ungram- 
matical  clash  of  sibilants — that  Master  who  would  have 
said,  "to  live  untroubled  and  weave  beautiful  and  win 
some  dreams  is  the  most  desirable  of  human  fates." 

It  will  not  be  forgotten  that  Mr.  Cabell  is  a  gene 
alogist,  and  that  his  labors  of  research  have  strength 
ened  his  knowledge  of  the  past.  The  list  of  his  books 
shows  a  nice  balance  between  his  constructive  work 
and  his  investigations  in  family  history.  Branchiana, 
A  Record  of  the  Branch  Family  in  Virginia  (1906) 
was  succeeded  in  1911  by  Branch  of  Abingdon,  and  in 
I9I5  by  The  Majors  and  Their  Marriages.  Nor,  al 
though  he  is  primarily  an  artist  in  narrative,  will  it 
be  forgotten  that  he  is  both  poet  and  essayist.  For 
his  short  stories  abound  in  verse  specimens  of  the 


JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL      39 

sort  which  the  age  of  chivalry  affected,  and  which 
cleverly  contributed  reality  to  various  scenes.  And  the 
fact  may  be  gathered  independently  from  his  From 
the  Hidden  Way  (1916).  And,  briefly,  as  to  his 
essays,  he  has  expressed  opinions  upon  a  variety  of 
subjects  in  Beyond  Life  (1919). 

Other  longer  works  not  herein  mentioned  previously 
are  Cords  of  Vanity  (1909),  The  Soul  of  Melicent 
(I9I3)»  reprinted  in  1920  under  the  title  Domnei,  and 
The  Rivet  in  Grandfather's  Neck  (1915). 

It  is  cause  for  rejoicing  that  Mr.  Cabell's  stories 
appear  with  increasing  frequency,  in  McClure's  and 
The  Century.  In  general,  they  carry  on  the  traditions 
of  his  earlier  volumes,  with  a  leaning  to  the  Jur- 
genesque.  His  Porcelain  Cups  (The  Century,  1919,) 
was  adjudged  by  the  Committee  from  the  Society  of 
Arts  and  Sciences  one  of  the  best  stories  published 
in  the  year  and  is  reprinted  in  the  Society's  first 
volume  of  O.  Henry  Memorial  Award  Prise  Stories 
(1920). 

This  author  should  only  have  just  begun  his  career, 
since  he  is  not  yet  forty-two  years  of  age.  He  was 
born  in  Richmond,  Virginia,  April  14,  1879.  His  life 
has  offered  the  variety  a  writer  of  the  studio  finds 
helpful;  after  graduation  at  the  College  of  William  and 
Mary,  1898,  he  worked  on  The  Richmond  Times, 
The  New  York  Herald  and  The  Richmond  News.  He 
has  been  historian  of  the  Virginia  Society  of  Colonial 
Wars  and  of  the  Virginia  Society  of  the  Sons  of  the 


go          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

American  Revolution.  In  connection  with  his  re 
searches,  he  has  travelled  much,  in  America,  France 
and  England.  He  was  married  in  1913,  since  which 
time  he  has  lived  for  the  most  part  at  Dumbarton 
Grange,  Dumbarton,  Virginia. 
Mr.  Cabell's  Short  Stories: 

The  Line  of  Love,  1905. 
Gallantry,  1907. 
Chivalry,  1909. 
The  Certain  Hour,  1916. 


CHAPTER  III 

DOROTHY  CANFIELD 

IN  the  twentieth  century  it  is  possible  for  one,  be 
fore  she  is  forty  years  of  age,  to  be  a  doctor  of 
philosophy,  master  of  half  a  dozen  languages,  a 
successful   novelist,   story-writer,   wife,   mother,  and 
war  worker.    Dorothy  Canfield  is  all  of  these,  and  in 
addition,  after  much  travel  and  living  abroad,  she  is 
an  American  of  Americans.    Her  Americanism  is  the 
essence  of  her  greatness  and  her  significance  for  the 
literature  of  to-day  and  to-morrow.    It  is  the  founda 
tion  on  which  rise  her  achievements. 

How  has  she  managed  to  do  so  much?  First,  the  cir 
cumstances  of  her  birth  were  favorable.  Daughter 
of  the  late  James  Hulme  Canfield,  who  was  President 
of  the  University  of  Kansas  at  the  time  she  was  born, 
and  his  wife  Flavia  Camp  Canfield,  artist,  Dorothea 
Frances  made  her  entry  dowered  with  unusual  intel 
ligence  and  aesthetic  sensibility.  She  was  born,  Feb 
ruary  17,  1879,  in  perhaps  the  most  American  region 
of  America,  if  the  land  of  the  free  be  symbolized  by 
wind-blown  skies  and  boundless  plains.  The  Mid- 
West  setting,  however,  was  balanced  by  the  girl's 

41 


42          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

academic  activities  at  Lawrence  and  later  at  the  Ohio 
State  University,  of  which  her  father  was  President 
when  she  took  her  A.  B.  degree  in  1899.  Thus  briefly 
are  indicated  the  Americanism  and  the  general  culture 
which  made  possible  a  Dorothy  Canfield.  The 
languages,  German,  Italian,  Spanish,  and  Danish  are 
explained  by  her  travel;  French  she  acquired  in  her 
mother's  studio  in  Paris.  When  her  father  accepted 
the  Chair  of  Librarian  at  Columbia  University,  she 
extended  her  researches  in  the  graduate  school  recently 
opened,  and  in  1904  took  the  doctorate  degree  in  Com 
parative  Literature.  She  combined  her  knowledge  of 
French  and  English  in  her  thesis :  Corneille  and  Rac 
ine  in  England  (1904). 

Meantime,  in  1902,  Miss  Canfield  while  working 
on  her  dissertation,  served  as  Secretary  of  the  Horace 
Mann  School,  connected  with  the  Teachers  College  of 
Columbia  University,  a  position  she  held  for  three 
years.  Then  out  of  her  association  with  the  late  Pro 
fessor  George  R.  Carpenter,  she  was  urged  to  further 
writing.  With  Professor  Carpenter  she  compiled  a 
text-book,  English  Rhetoric  and  Composition  (1906), 
and  about  the  same  time  began  to  publish  stories  in 
magazines.  Mr.  Grant  Overton  remarks  in  The 
Women  Who  Make  Our  Novels:  "Before  The  Squir 
rel  Cage  [published  in  1912],  Mrs.  Fisher  was  merely 
the  author  of  a  few  text-books.  After  it  she  was  an 
important  figure  in  American  fiction."  From  the  angle 
of  the  public,  and  in  a  deeply  sardonic  sense  this  is 


DOROTHY  CANFIELD  43 

more  than  true.  For  the  reading  public  would  be  as 
indifferent  to  the  scholar  who  produced  a  work  on 
the  French  dramatists  as  to  the  technician  who  con 
tributed  to  a  book  on  the  art  and  business  of  writing. 
It  should  be  stated,  however,  that  many  of  Mrs. 
Fisher's  stories  were  published  years  before  they  were 
gathered  up  into  Hillsboro  People  and  The  Real  Mo 
tive.  Some  of  them  appeared  as  early  as  1906:  The 
\Bedquilt,  The  Philanthropist  and  the  Peaceful  Life 
' — reprinted,  1915,  under  the  title  Fortune  and  the 
Fifth  Card — and  The  Great  Refusal.  Undoubtedly 
the  success  of  The  Squirrel  Cage  hastened  their  preser 
vation  in  book  form. 

On  May  9,  1907,  Dorothy  Canfield  was  married  to 
John  Redwood  Fisher,  of  New  York.  Shortly  after 
the  event,  they  went  to  Arlington,  Vermont,  where 
they  found  far  removed  from  city  commerce  and  pan 
demonium  a  house  adapted  to  the  art  of  living  and 
working.  No  one  can  read  At  the  Foot  of  Hemlock 
Mountain,  the  essay  that  introduces  Hillsboro  People 
(1915),  and  fail  to  be  convinced  of  the  real  life  that 
Dorothy  Canfield  Fisher  experiences  in  the  town  of 
Arlington.  For  the  essay  is  reflective  of  her  own  vil 
lage.  Acording  to  her  sentiments,  "Like  any  other 
of  those  gifts  of  life  which  gratify  insatiable  cravings 
of  humanity,  living  in  a  country  village  conveys  a  satis 
faction  which  is  incommunicable.  .  .  ."  "City  dwellers 
make  money,  make  reputations  (good  and  bad),  make 
museums  and  subways,  make  charitable  institutions, 


44          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

make  with  a  hysteric  rapidity,  like  excited  spiders, 
more  and  yet  more  complications  in  the  mazy  laby 
rinths  of  their  lives,  but  they  never  make  each  others' 
acquaintances  .  .  .  and  that  is  all  that  is  worth  do 
ing  in  the  world.  ..." 

It  is  proof  of  her  wisdom  and  of  her  fathoming  the 
meaning  of  the  verb  to  live  that,  after  the  great  cities 
New  York,  Paris,  and  Rome,  she  turned,  a  single- 
hearted  American,  to  the  country,  not  to  escape  from 
but  to  mingle  with  her  fellow  beings.  All  novels,  she 
says,  seem  badly  written,  faint  and  faded,  in  compari 
son  with  the  life  which  palpitates  up  and  down  the 
village  street.  She  commiserates  the  city  dweller  who 
lives  through  "canned  romances,  adventures,  tragedies, 
farces,"  as  one  who  passes  blindfold  through  life. 

Yet  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  Mrs.  Fisher  is  a 
product  of  balance,  and  she  continues  to  maintain  that 
balance.  With  her  husband  and  children  she  adven 
tures  away  from  Arlington  and  seeks  what  she  needs 
by  way  of  change.  In  191 1-1912  they  spent  the  winter 
in  Italy.  In  Rome,  Mrs.  Fisher  met  Madame  Montes- 
sori  and  worked  with  her  at  the  Children's  House  at 
the  same  time  she  was  translating  the  works  later  pub 
lished  under  the  titles  A  Montessori  Mother  (1913)' 
and  Mothers  and  Children  (1914). 

Her  mounting  fame  rose  with  a  greater  climax,  the 
world  war.  The  years  from  1914  to  1919  are  crowded 
with  the  work  of  the  woman  as  of  the  writer.  In  Paris, 
she  edited  a  magazine  for  soldiers ;  she  took  care  of  the 


DOROTHY  CANFIELD  45 

refugees ;  she  organized  two  children's  homes  at  Gue- 
thary,  in  the  south  of  France ;  she  organized  at  Meudon 
a  home  and  day  nursery  for  munition  workers'  chil 
dren;  she  ran  a  camp  on  the  edge  of  the  war  zone. 
Meantime,  Hillsboro  People  (1915)  and  The  Bent 
Twig  (1915),  were  followed  by  The  Real  Motive 
(1916),  Fellow  Captains  (1916)  and  Understood 
Betsey  (1917).  Home  Fires  in  France  (1918)  and 
The  Day  of  Glory  (1919)  placed  a  gold  laurel-leaf 
crown  on  the  author's  work  in  France.  The  sketches 
and  stories  under  these  two  titles  are  among  the  most 
popular  of  the  many  works  written  during  the  war 
and  immediately  after  the  armistice. 

Although  Mrs.  Fisher  is  first  of  all  a  novelist  she  is 
next  a  short-story  writer.  In  the  future,  the  literary 
historian  will  class  her  tales,  in  all  probability,  as 
of  three  periods :  before  the  war,  during  the  war,  and 
after  the  war.  At  the  moment,  the  first  two  divisions 
are  the  ones  which  concern  us. 

Hillsboro  People  (1915)  and  The  Real  Motive 
(1916)  may  be  discussed  as  if  the  titles  were  merged 
in  one  volume ;  for  the  stories  divided  between  the  two 
cover  the  years  from  1906  to  1915,  with  the  over 
flow  of  1916  in  the  latter  volume.  To  read  these  col 
lections  is  to  feel  the  invigorating  influence  of  a  fresh 
buoyant  optimism,  to  catch  glimpses  of  a  generous 
sympathy,  to  come  face  to  face  with  a  democracy  which 
in  the  best  sense  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  whether 
differentiated  by  age  or  social  conditions  or  culture. 


46         OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

The  stories  have  their  settings  in  the  Middle  West,  in 
and  near  New  York,  in  Paris,  and  in  Hillsboro.  (All 
in  the  collection  of  1915  are  connected  in  one  way  or 
other  with  Hillsboro).  The  range  of  time  is  from  the 
eighteenth  century,  for  example,  In  New  New  England 
(first  published  in  1910),  to  the  present,  the  time  of 
the  greatest  number.  The  characters  reflect  the  au 
thor's  many-sided  interests :  the  librarian  is  represented 
in  J.  M.,  hero  of  Avunculus  (1909),  and  in  Miss  Mar 
tin  (Hillsboro' s  Good  Luck,  1908)  ;  the  artist  is  found 
in  Falleres,  who  painted  the  college  president  (Por 
trait  of  a  Philosopher,  1911),  in  An  April  Masque 
(1910),  in  The  Deliverer  (1909),  and  triumphantly  in 
The  Artist  (1911).  The  college  professor  figures  in 
An  Academic  Question  (1910),  and  A  Thread  with 
out  a  Knot  (originally  entitled,  when  first  published 
in  1910,  An  Unframed  Picture).  A  baby  is  the  hero 
of  Vignettes  from  a  Life  of  Two  Months  (1915),  old 
men  are  heroes  of  The  Heyday  of  the  Blood  (1909), 
and  As  a  Bird  Out  of  the  Snare  ( 1908)  ;  an  old  lady  is 
the  humble  heroine  of  The  lBed quilt  ( 1906).  Nor  does 
this  list  exhaust  the  little  world  of  her  story  people; 
nor  is  her  understanding  of  any  one  diminished  by 
her  equal  understanding  of  the  others.  The  poor  artist 
in  An  April  Masque  is  not  unworthy  as  a  companion 
to  the  Artist;  for  life  and  ideals  are  greater  than  art 
— so  exceedingly  vaster  that  the  difference  between 
the  best  art  and  the  worst  becomes  negligible  in  the 
sum  of  things.  So,  also,  the  difference  between  old 


DOROTHY  CANFIELD  47 

and  modern  education  is  inconsiderable  in  the  march  of 
the  years.  In  New  New  England,  Captain  Winthrop 
undertakes  the  education  of  Hannah  Shenvin,  aided 
thereto  by  a  work  entitled  'The  Universal  Preceptor; 
being  a  General  Grammar  of  Art,  Science,  and  Useful 
Knowledge."  "Up  in  our  garret  we  have  the  very  book 
he  used,'*  continues  the  narrator,  "and  modern  research 
and  science  have  proved  that  there  is  scarcely  a  true 
word  in  it.  But  don't  waste  any  pity  on  Hannah  for 
having  such  a  mistaken  teacher,  for  it  is  likely  enough, 
don't  you  think,  that  research  and  science  a  hundred 
years  from  now  will  have  proved  that  there  is  scarcely  a 
word  of  truth  in  our  school-books  of  to-day?  It  really 
doesn't  seem  to  matter  much." 

Her  sympathy  for  the  boy  or  girl  cribbed  in  by 
circumstance  flashes  out  repeatedly,  as  in  The  Bedquilt, 
The  Deliverer,  and  As  a  Bird.  Aunt  Mehetabel  aged 
sixty-eight  makes  her  initial  appeal  to  the  reader 
through  the  fact  that  she  seems  to  be  regarded  a 
nonentity  in  the  house  of  her  brother.  She  must  ask, 
even,  for  scraps  to  make  the  quilt.  It  is  no  ordinary 
quilt.  Into  its  perfection  go  months  of  work  labor 
iously  materializing  a  design  made  possible  through 
previous  practice  and  the  inspiration  of  a  soul  barred 
from  other  outlets  of  expression.  When  it  is  finished, 
her  brother  declares  it  must  be  sent  to  the  fair;  later,  in 
an  unwonted  burst  of  generostity,  he  arranges  for  her 
to  go.  When  she  returns  she  has  nothing  to  relate, 
except  about  the  quilt,  which  has  taken  the  first  prize. 


48         OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

One  sees  her  sitting  there  before  the  glass  case,  ab 
sorbed  in  rapt  contemplation  of  her  own  handiwork, 
marveling  that  she  has  done  it,  deaf  to  the  sounds  of 
the  fair,  blind  to  all  other  sights.  The  Deliverer  is  a 
story  of  New  England,  in  1756,  of  the  days  when 
love  of  nature  was  held  a  sin,  when  the  love  of  God 
was  not  greater  than  the  fear  of  hell  fire.  Nathaniel 
Everett,  son  to  the  preacher,  believes  he  is  lost:  "My 
heart  is  all  full  of  carnal  pleasures  and  desires.  To 
look  at  the  sun  on  the  hillside — why  I  love  it  so  that 
I  forget  my  soul — hell — God — "  His  seizures  do  not 
avail  to  cure  him.  He  says  to  Colonel  Hall  and  M. 
LeMaury,  who  were  to  be  his  deliverers,  "I — I  would 
rather  look  at  a  haw-tree  in  blossom  than  meditate  on 
the  Almighty!"  It  is  a  turning  point  in  Nathaniel's 
life  when  dying  Colonel  Hall  goes  calmly  out  with  the 
final  words  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Everett :  "I  don't  believe  in 
your  damned  little  hell !"  Nathaniel's  final  deliverance, 
the  story  suggests  by  the  denouement  (placed  first  in 
the  story  order),  is  through  Le  Maury,  whose  name 
the  boy  took  and  by  whose  aid  he  became  a  great  artist. 
As  a  Bird  Out  of  the  Snare  shows  triumph  of  spirit; 
but  it  is  cause  for  tears  to  reflect  that  Jehiel  Hawthorn 
was  bound,  year  after  year,  to  the  farm  while  the  pine 
tree  grew  high  into  heaven.  He  had  vowed,  "Before 
it's  as  tall  as  the  ridge-pole  of  the  house,  I'll  be  on  my 
way." 

Not  least  of  Mrs.  Fisher's  accomplishments  is  her 
faithful  portrayal  of  the  expressionless  New  England 


DOROTHY  CANFIELD  49 

man  and  woman.  Mehetabel  is  speechless  when  she 
tries  to  speak  of  the  glories  of  her  quilt;  though  she 
longs  with  her  whole  soul  to  convey  the  splendor  of 
her  vision,  she  falters.  She  dismisses  recollections  of 
hymn-book  phraseology  as  not  quite  the  thing. 
"Finally,  'I  tell  you  it  looked  real  well!'  she  assured 
them."  So  in  Petunias  (1912)  Grandma  Pritchard 
comes  to  the  point  in  her  rehearsal  where  the  husband, 
who  she  had  heard  was  killed  at  Gettysburg,  returns. 
"I  tell  you — I  tell  you — /  was  real  glad  to  see  him!"  So 
in  Flint  and  Fire  (1915)  Emma  Hulett  "stopped  short 
in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  looked  at  me  silently, 
piteously,  and  found  no  word."  And  so  Lem  (In 
Memory  of  L.  H.  W.,  entitled  when  originally  pub 
lished  in  1912,  The  Hillsboro  Shepherd)  died,  saying, 
"I'm— I'm  real  tired." 

But  such  dumb-strickenness  is  a  characteristic  not 
only  of  New  Englanders.  In  Home  Fires  in  France, 
when  Pierre  ( The  Permissionaire)  returns,  he  and  his 
wife  utter  scream  after  scream  of  joy,  "ringing  up  to 
the  very  heavens,  frantic,  incredulous,  magnificent 
joy."  But  after  the  first  wild  cries  had  rocketed  to  the 
sky,  "they  had  no  words,  no  words  at  all."  When 
Andre  (On  the  Edge,  in  The  Day  of  Glory)  returns, 
Jeanne  "knew  nothing  but  that  he  was  there,  that  she 
held  him  in  her  arms." 

More  than  one  critic  has  declared  the  stories  in  Home 
Fires  in  France  to  be  the  finest  works  of  fiction  pro 
duced  by  any  American  in  the  course  of  the  war.  Writ- 


50         OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

ten,  it  is  reported,  while  Mrs.  Fisher's  little  daughter 
was  convalescing  from  illness,  they  result  from  her 
long  familiarity  with  the  French  people  and  her  "two 
years  intense  experience  in  war  work."  Her  passionate 
sympathy  for  the  oppressed  nation  thrills,  vibrant, 
throughout  the  collection.  The  Real  Motive  and  Hills- 
boro  People  are  but  the  peaceful  expression  of  a  heart 
aflame  in  Home  Fires.  Dedicated  to  General  Pershing, 
whom  Dorothy  Canfield  had  known  in  Kansas  when 
she  was  a  little  girl,  the  book  contains  sketches,  essays 
and  stories.  Besides  The  Permissionaire,  already  men 
tioned,  there  are  three  other  narratives,  A  Little  Kansas 
Leaven,  The  First  Time  After,  and  La  Pharmacienne. 
Vignettes  from  Life  at  the  Rear,  The  Refugee,  and 
Eyes  for  the  Blind  lack  the  action  that  characterizes 
those  named  first;  but  all,  alike,  are  readable,  and  all 
are  designated  as  "fiction." 

The  theme  of  The  Permissionaire  is  at  once  a  con 
solation  and  a  call  to  carry  on.  "What  was  in  the 
ground,  alive,  they  could  not  kill,"  and  so  Pierre  re 
claimed  his  asparagus,  Paulette  her  peonies,  and  the 
man  went  back  to  the  front  after  his  furlough  and  the 
rebuilding  of  his  destroyed  home  with  a  memory  of 
the  peas  he  had  planted  thrusting  their  green  leaves 
above  the  soil.  A  Little  Kansas  Leaven  means  that  a 
homely,  ignorant  girl  roused  by  the  call  from  France, 
spent  her  small  savings  to  reach  Paris  and  to  work 
there  so  long  as  her  few  hundreds  of  dollars  held  out, 
and  that  later  she  returned  to  Marshallton,  Kansas, 


DOROTHY  CANFIELD  51 

with  a  straightforward  story  that  speedily  established 
an  ambulance.  This  leaven  worked  before  America 
entered  the  war,  and  if  the  denouement  has  in  this 
brief  summary  the  suggestion  of  propaganda,  it  was 
needed  even  when  the  story  first  appeared  in  The  Pic 
torial  Review,  August,  1918.  But  the  struggle  of 
Ellen  Boardman  is  very  real,  and  the  absence  of  love 
and  beauty  leaves  a  stark  simplicity  which  is  somehow 
mightily  convincing  that  it  all  happened. 

The  First  Time  After  reveals  Mrs.  Fisher's  ability 
to  put  herself  in  another's  place,  from  the  stony  despair 
that  succeeds  blindness  to  the  moment  when  the  heart 
is  stirred  by  some  natural  touch  to  renewed  feeling. 
"He  stooped  and  felt  in  his  fingers  the  lace-like  grace 
of  a  fern-stalk.  The  sensation  brought  back  to  him 
with  shocking  vividness  all  his  boyhood,  sun-flooded, 
gone  forever.  .  .  .  He  flung  himself  down  in  the 
midst  of  the  ferns,  the  breaking-point  come  at  last, 
beating  his  forehead  on  the  ground.  .  .  .  Dreadful 
tears  ran  down  from  his  blind  eyes  upon  the  ferns." 
Later,  he  heard  a  thrush,  "trying  his  voice  wistfully. " 
And,  later  yet,  he  laughs,  the  first  time  since  his 
blindness. 

La  Pharmacienne  pictures  the  sheltered  life  of 
Madeleine,  wife  of  the  pharmacist;  then,  in  contrast, 
her  heroic  struggle  to  live  and  to  keep  her  children 
alive;  and,  finally,  her  successful  effort  to  save  the 
pharmacy.  Here,  as  in  the  other  stories,  the  indomit 
able  spirit  of  the  French  race  interfuses  itself  through 


152         'OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

pages  written  by  an  American  woman.  The  self-efface 
ment  of  the  Directrice,  in  Eyes  for  the  Blind,  who  had 
found  in  the  lists  of  the  dead  "two  long  years  before, 
£he  name  which  alone  gave  meaning  to  her  life" ;  the 
self-effacement  of  Amieux  (in  Vignettes),  who  re 
fused  the  croix  de  guerre  because  its  possession  would 
indicate  to  his  mother  that  he  had  been  in  danger; 
the  self-effacement  of  the  singing  group  described  in 
^The  Refugee — such  effacement  means  national  sur 
vival.  The  Marseillaise  has  stirred  its  millions  since 
the  time  of  Rouget  de  1'Isle,  but  never  has  it  rung 
more  bravely  than  when  the  school  children  of  Cousin 
Jean  sang  it,  sang  the  first  stanza,  the  second  stanza 
and  the  chorus — and  the  elders  joined  in.  Their  sing 
ing  might  have  meant  death  for  all;  but  "There 
were  three  hundred  voices  shouting  it  out,  the  tears 
streaming  down  our  cheeks."  Never  has  it  swelled 
more  triumphantly  than  in  The  Day  of  Glory  (1919) 
when  the  throngs  of  Paris  swept  to  the  Place  de  la 
Concorde  to  salute  the  Statue  of  Strasbourg.  And 
Dorothy  Canfield  was  there  and  rushed  out  into  the 
street  and  became  a  part  of  the  spirit  of  thanksgiving 
and  shared  her  feelings  with  us  across  the  sea: 

"Allons,  en f ants  de  la  patrie, 
Le  Jour  de  Gloire  est  arrive! 

The  houses  echoed  to  those  words,   repeated  and 
repeated  by  every  band  of  jubilant  men  and  women 


DOROTHY  CANFIELD  S3 

and  children  who  swept  by,  waving  flags  and  shouting: 

Come,  children  of  our  country, 
The  Day  of  Glory  is  here!" 

Of  this  second  and  briefer  volume,  the  opening  piece, 
On  the  Edge,  has  been  proclaimed  the  best  story  its 
author  has  written.  This  tribute  is  higher  praise  thai* 
it  deserves  and  underestimates  Mrs.  Fisher's  other  nar 
ratives;  but  it  is  admirable  in  its  restrained  account 
of  a  brave  Frenchwoman's  struggle  to  protect  and  keep 
alive  her  family  of  six,  children  and  foster-children, 
and  for  the  convincing  suggestion  of  her  being  'on 
the  edge/  hovering  on  the  border  of  insanity.  Andre, 
she  dreamed,  had  come  home.  But  there  was  the 
watch  he  had  left  for  his  oldest  son!  And  the  reader 
has  a  sudden  revelation  of  the  soldier  heart:  he  had 
known  she  was  driven  almost  past  the  bounds  of  sanity 
and  that  the  gold  case  would  remind  her  his  visit  had 
been  not  a  dream  but  a  throbbing  reality.  Or  this  is 
the  interpretation  that  some  of  us  like  to  make.  But 
if  there  had  not  been  the  watch,  there  would  have 
risen  some  other  mute  evidence  of  his  presence  to  cheer 
her  and  restore  her  languishing  courage. 

Without  crossing  the  border-line  between  sentiment 
and  sentimentality,  these  stories  pull  constantly  at  the 
emotions.  Has  any  man  or  wToman  read  either  volume 
without  tears? 

The  struggles  Mrs.  Fisher  finds  of  moment  are  be- 


54          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

tween  the  individual  and  his  environment  (The  De 
liverer)  ;  between  the  individual  and  heredity  (A  Good 
Fight  and  the  Faith  Kept,  first  published  as  The  Con 
queror,  1916) ;  between  man  and  false  standards  of 
life  (A  Sleep  and  a  Forgetting,  first  published  under 
the  title,  Gifts  of  Oblivion,  1913)  ;  between  man  and 
eclipsed  personality  (The  First  Time  After) ;  the  will 
to  survive  and  the  forces  that  make  for  destruction — 
almost  all  her  French  stories.  The  surprise  ending 
has  had  small  influence  on  her  plots.  Since  she  is 
primarily  the  novelist,  avowedly  interested  in  people, 
with  story  mechanics  she  concerns  herself  hardly  at 
all.  But  Flint  and  Fire  closes  on  a  neat  twist,  de 
pendent  upon  a  trait  of  character;  A  Sleep  and  a  For- 
getting  startles  by  the  disclosure  that  Warren  recovered 
his  memory  eight  years  before  he  admitted  the  fact. 

Vermont  and  its  Green  Mountains  are  the  fit  setting 
for  a  writer  whose  ideals  are  so  high  and  whose  living 
is  so  simple.  If  the  vison  of  the  Ideal  Commonwealth 
ever  is  realized,  perhaps  the  setting  may  be  Hillsboro. 

Mrs.  Fisher's  Short  Stories: 

Hillsboro  People,  1915. 
The  Real  Motive,  1916. 
Home  Fires  in  France,  1918. 
The  Day  of  Glory,  1919. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS 

MR.  ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS  is  the  author 
of  some  fifty  volumes,  including  novels,  short 
stories,  nature  books,  poems,  and  one  drama. 
Known  to  the  majority  of  readers  through  his  longer 
romances,  he  began  his  career  as  artist  of  the  brush 
and  gained  his  first  literary  triumph  by  a  volume  of 
short  stories,  The  King  in  Yellow. 

It  is  not  possible  in  this  resume  of  Mr.  Chambers^ 
brief  fiction  even  to  take  inventory  of  his  novels,  much 
less  to  voice  a  scientific  or  personal  criticism  or  to  ven 
ture  upon  consideration  of  their  popularity.  A  com 
plete  account  of  so  versatile  and  prolific  a  writer  would 
discuss  them  as  his  significant  accomplishment.  If 
his  admirers  belong  to  a  class  of  readers  who  seek 
sensation  or  revel  in  romance  pushed  to  the  utmost 
bounds  of  credibility,  it  is  also  true  that  his  disclaim 
ers  belong  to  a  class  that  objects,  on  principle  and  on 
hearsay,  to  reading  him  at  all  The  truth  about  his 
work  lies  not  in  extremes,  but  it  is  conceded  that  the 
extremist  speaks  with  greater  apparent  force  and  pic- 
turesqueness. 

55 


56          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Some  years  ago,  Mr.  Frederic  Taber  Cooper  wrote 
an  article  on  Mr.  Chambers*,  which  was  later  attacked 
in  part  by  Mr.  John  Curtis  Underwoodf .  Mr.  Under 
wood  says,  "If  Mr.  Chambers  thoroughly  deserves 
to  be  called  the  prince  of  wholesale  and  cheap  illusion, 
of  commercialized  darkness  and  flippant  immorality 
in  American  fiction,  if  he  gets  the  highest  current 
prices  for  literary  lies  and  extravagant  frivolity  based 
on  false  social  distinction  and  exclusively  patrician 
ideals ;  if  continually  he  assumes  more  than  he  proves, 
and  alternately  professes  the  most  inconsequent  trivial 
ity  in  his  treatment  of  contemporary  life  and  a  pose 
of  the  social  reformer  of  society  from  the  inside,  who 
satirizes  what  he  exploits ;  then  it  is  small  wonder  that 
a  comparatively  large  and  unsophisticated  section  of 
the  reading  public,  who  still  buy  and  read  his  books, 
are  at  a  loss  just  where  and  how  to  place  him."  Here 
is  the  expression  of  an  extremist,  obviously  a  thinker 
concerned  about  ethical  values. 

But  the  critic  who  is  artist  before  he  is  social  re 
former  will  have  a  different  word.  Mr.  Rupert 
Hughes,  in  writing  of  Mr.  Chambers,  spoke  of  his 
"unusual  eye  for  color,  and  his  delight  in  beauty  of 
every  sort,"  and  he  praised  The  Fighting  Chance: 
"The  book  has  a  largeness  of  sympathy,  a  breadth  of 
construction,  and  a  finish  of  detail  that  give  it  a  high 
place  among  American  novels."  Mr.  Underwood 

*  See  Some  American  Story  Tellers,  by  Frederic  Taber  Cooper, 
Henry  Holt  and  Co.,  1911. 
t  In  Literature  and  Insurgency,  Mitchell  Kennerley,  1914. 


ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS  57 

wrote:  "Books  like  The  Fighting  Chance  have  more 
to  do  with  the  tragedies  of  the  divorce-court  and  the 
stock  exchange  than  either  Mr.  Chambers  or  critics 
like  Mr.  Cooper  are  likely  to  imagine."  Without  al 
lowing  the  relation  of  art  to  morality  to  detain  us, 
we  may  assert  that  the  critic  who  regards  literature  as 
an  artistic  medium  will  see  distinctive  and  distinguished 
values  in  the  narratives  of  Mr.  Chambers;  the  critic 
who  regards  literature  as  a  vehicle  for  propaganda 
may  find  in  them  definite  forces  for  evil.  There  are, 
of  course,  few  moralist-critics  who  exclude  from  them 
selves  the  artist,  as  there  are  few  artist-critics  who 
exclude  from  themselves  the  moralist.  In  any  event, 
it  will  be  our  pleasure  to  notice  his  marked  character 
istics  in  his  briefer  fiction. 

Mr.  Chambers  reveals  himself  in  his  short  stories  a 
man  of  the  world,  acquainted  with  states  and  king 
doms;  a  specialist  in  the  art  of  the  brush,  in  rugs,  in 
armor,  in  butterflies,  in  dogs;  a  historian  with  a  fine 
sense  of  historical  perspective  and  a  student  who  em 
ploys  conscientious  methods  of  research.  He  has  writ 
ten  stories  of  Paris — the  Latin  quarter,  in  particular; 
stories  of  artists  at  home  and  abroad;  stories  of  game 
keepers  and  fire-wardens  in  the  Adirondacks  and  of 
millionaires  on  shooting  preserves  in  Florida;  many 
stories  of  beautiful  women  and  brave  men;  stories  of 
disordered  brains;  stories  derived  from  French  his 
tory,  the  Civil  War  in  America  and  the  World  War; 
stories  of  wild  fancy  and  of  the  supernatural;  stories 


58         OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

exploiting  the  back-to-nature  cry  and  the  simple  life; 
stories  that  are  numerous  prophecies  in  the  realm  of 
wireless  and  mental  telepathy.  Nor  is  the  list  com 
plete.  He  might  say  of  himself  with  Bacon,  "I  have 
taken  all  knowledge  to  be  my  province." 

His  method,  rooted  in  romance,  has  grown  by  what 
it  fed  on,  so  that  the  strongest  criticism  against  his 
short  stories  is  that  they  represent  romance  run  mad. 
Yet,  skilled  technician  that  he  is,  Mr.  Chambers  knows 
how  momentarily  to  compel  belief.  He  throws  the 
veil  of  mood  upon  the  reader,  rose  color  or  blue;  he 
employs  the  lure  of  realistic  detail  to  clinch  probability, 
while  he  subdues  it  to  the  spell  of  fantasy ;  he  describes 
his  settings  with  the  consummate  ease  of  one  trained 
to  appreciate  color  and  form ;  and  these  scenes,  which 
are  true  to  nature,  prevail  upon  the  reader  to  accept 
the  dramas  acted  in  them. 

His  best  stories,  of  rare  beauty  and  spirituality,  are 
those  of  the  supernatural.  They  should  live  so  long 
as  theories  of  metempsychosis  last — the  subject  is  as 
old  as  Pythagoras — and  so  long  as  revenants  return. 
His  stories  to  be  forgotten  are  those  which  impress 
upon  the  reader  the  physical  charms  of  the  bright- 
haired,  blue-eyed  heroine,  approvedly  through  the  eyes 
of  the  hero,  and  which  would  convince  the  reader  that, 
within  an  hour  or  a  day  after  meeting  each  other,  the 
heroine  is  safely  harbored  in  the  hero's  arms. 

Robert  W.  Chambers  was  born  in  Brooklyn,  May 


ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS  59 

26,  1865.  He  shares  with  his  brother,  Walter  Bough- 
ton  Chambers,  the  artistic  gift:  he  was  in  Julian's 
Academy  from  1886  to  1893 ;  his  brother,  after  taking 
a  degree  at  Yale,  studied  architecture  with  Blondel  in 
1889.  Before  going  to  Paris,  Robert  was  at  the  Art 
Students'  League  in  New  York,  where  he  had  as  class-; 
mate,  Charles  Dana  Gibson.  At  the  age  of  twenty- 
four  he  had  painted  pictures  acceptable  to  the  Salon. 
There  is  a  legend  that  after  returning  to  America  in 
1893  he  and  Gibson  submitted  sketches  to  Life  and 
that  his  were  taken  but  Gibson's  returned.  Urged 
by  the  writing  instinct  and  by  a  desire  to  express  him 
self  more  rapidly  than  the  medium  of  the  brush  would 
allow,  he  produced  his  first  novel,  In  the  Quarter 
(1893).  The  King  in  Yellow  (1895)  made  his  repu 
tation  and  determined  his  career. 

His  life  as  art  student  may  be  gleaned  from  certain 
stories  in  this  first  collection.  Rue  Barree,  which  be 
gins  "one  morning  at  Julian's/'  presents  Kid  Selby 
"drunk  as  a  lord,"  a  study  of  intoxication  equalled  only 
by  Owen  Wister's  in  Philosophy  Four,  and  as  indubi 
tably  drawn  from  life.  In  the  Street  of  Our  Lady  of 
the  Fields,  Valentine  names  the  artists  whom  she  knows 
and  who  are  more  or  less  contemporaries  of  Mr. 
Chambers :  Bouguereau,  Henner,  Constant,  Laurens, 
Puvis  de  Chavannes,  Dagnan  and  Courtois.  One  might 
also  deduce  from  the  book  that  while  in  France  he  had 
become  interested  in  armor  and  falconry,  and  then  or 
later  in  the  elixir  of  life  and  metempsychosis  as  start- 


60          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

ing  points  for  adult  fairy  tales.  The  Mask  and  The 
Demoiselle  D'Ys,  though  the  latter  is  somewhat  over 
burdened  with  technical  language,  are  both  admirable 
examples  of  the  story-teller's  art.  Almost  from  the 
first  Mr.  Chambers  was  sure  of  his  manner.  To  know 
one  art  is  to  know  the  principles  of  all  art.  Through 
out  this  volume  and  all  those  succeeding  it,  the  author's 
training  in  drawing  and  painting  serves  for  first  aid 
toward  perfection  of  method.  He  might  have  been 
thinking  of  himself  when  he  wrote  of  Leeds  in  The 
Ghost  of  Chance  (in  The  Tree  of  Heaven) :  "The  tech 
nique  that  sticks  out  like  dry  bones,  the  spineless  lack 
of  construction,  fads,  pitiful  eccentricities  to  cover  in 
ability — nothing  of  these  had  ever,  even  in  his  student 
days,  threatened  him  with  the  pit-fall  of  common  dis 
aster."  And  if  the  tales  here  and  there  are  already 
the  efflorescence  of  exaggerated  romance,  he  justified 
himself  to  himself.  He  said  later,  through  the  Coun 
tess  in  A  Journey  to  the  Moon  (in  The  Adventures  of 
a  Modest  Man):  "Romance  is  at  least  amusing;  reality 
alone  is  a  sorry  scarecrow  clothed  in  the  faded  rags  of 
dreams." 

In  The  Yellow  Sign — to  return  to  The  King  in 
Yellow — which  combines  an  artist  and  his  model  with 
a  supernatural  theme,  the  author  finds  kinship  with 
Edgar  Allan  Poe.  The  horror  achieved  through  the 
coffin-worm  watchman,  the  hearse  and  the  yellow  sign 
is  unforgettable;  and  the  mysterious  book,  The  King  in 
Yellow,  so  dire  in  its  effects  here  and  elsewhere,  stands 


ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS  61 

for  the  power  of  suggestion  which  Mr.  Chambers 
grasped  at  the  outset.  Outside  of  the  stories  men 
tioned,  the  collection  sows  the  seed  for  the  more  re 
grettable  harvest-portions  of  the  author's  later  achieve 
ment.  One  striking  exception  should  be  noted.  The 
beginning  of  the  first  story,  The  Repairer  of  Reputes 
tions,  must  draw  a  gasp  from  every  reader  who  reads 
with  awareness  that  it  was  written  a  quarter  of  a  cen 
tury  before  the  year  1920  had  dawned:  "Towards  the 
end  of  the  year  1920  .  .  .The  end  of  the  war  with  Ger 
many  had  left  no  visible  scars  upon  the  republic.  .  .  . 
And  even  in  New  York  a  sudden  craving  for  decency 
had  swept  away  a  great  portion  of  the  existing  horrors. 
...  In  the  following  winter  (1911-1912)  began  that 
agitation  for  the  repeal  of  the  laws  prohibiting  suicide, 
which  bore  its  final  fruit  in  the  month  of  April,  1920, 
when  the  first  Government  Lethal  Chamber  was  opened 
on  Washington  Square."  With  all  due  allowance  for 
failure  to  foresee  every  detail  accurately,  no  one  will 
hesitate  after  reading  the  first  three  pages  of  this  tale, 
to  add  to  Mr.  Chambers's  other  qualifications  that  of 
seer.  For  what  he  lacks  in  exactness  is  more  than 
counterbalanced  by  the  comprehensiveness  of  his  vision. 
...  It  is  to  be  hoped,  however,  that  the  Lethal  Chamber 
never  will  be  established ! 

Mr.  Arthur  Bartlett  Maurice  has  pointed  out,  in  The 
New  York  of  the  Novelists,  that  Mr.  Chambers  was 
living  at  60  Washington  Square  South  when  he  wrote 
The  King  and  that  not  only  the  Square  but  its  environs 


62         OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

are  used  in  a  number  of  his  early  stories.  But  "The 
Robert  W.  Chambers  of  the  later  books,  so  far  as  the 
Borough  of  Manhattan  is  concerned,  is  essentially  as 
sociated  with  the  vast  expanse  of  city  which  comes 
under  the  head  of  Tea,  Tango,  and  Toper  Land — in  a 
word,  the  great  hotels,  clubs,  and  theatres;  the  sweep 
of  Fifth  Avenue  from  Murray  Hill  to  the  Plaza,  and 
beyond  along  the  east  side  of  the  Park,  the  Park  itself, 
and  the  structures  that  line  the  Riverside  Drive." 

The  Maker  of  Moons  appeared  the  same  year  as 
The  King  in  Yellow.  Of  the  eight  stories  bound  in 
its  covers,  the  title  narrative  of  some  fifteen  thousand 
words  illustrates  the  author's  progress  in  the  unreal  and 
the  horrible.  It  has  to  do  with  the  alleged  discovery 
that  gold  may  be  synthesized,  with  the  repulsive  crea 
ture  that  accompanies  the  manufactured  metal — 
"something  soft  and  yellow  with  crab-like  legs,  all 
covered  with  coarse  yellow  hair,"  with  Yue-Laou,  who 
lived  in  the  moon  and  perverted  the  Xin  or  good  genii 
of  China,  with  Yeth-hounds,  or  spirits  of  murdered 
children,  passing  through  the  woods  at  night,  with  the 
members  of  the  Kuen-Yin,  or  sorcerers  of  China,  and 
with  Ysonde,  the  daughter  of  her  who  was  created 
from  a  white  lotus  bud.  Unreal,  undoubtedly.  But 
even  the  most  fantastic  of  these  motives  are  not  with 
out  parallel:  Eden  Phillpotts's  Another  Little  Heath 
Hound  is  the  counterpart  of  the  Yeth  hound;  James 
Branch  Cabell's  The  Hour  of  Freydis*  recalls  the 
*McClure's,  June,  1920. 


ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS  63 

origin  of  Ysonde.  Mr.  Chambers  makes  immediately 
-credible  all  these  marvels  by  a  device  as  old  as  DeFoe. 
Tiffany's,  the  Metropolitan  Museum,  and  the  Cana 
dian  woods  are  real,  and  they  are  the  factual  scenes 
of  the  tale;  Cockney-speaking  Howlett  and  Game 
keeper  David  contribute  to  reality  through  person  and 
dialect ;  the  narrator  Cardenhe  aids  conviction  through 
his  matter-of-fact  style — notwithstanding  the  fantastic 
passages,  which  are  integrated  through  contrast;  his 
friends,  Pierrepont  and  Barris,  by  their  worldly  pur 
suits,  increase  it. 

Mr.  Chambers  is  a  necromancer  here,  as  elsewhere. 
The  moons  Yue-Lauo  conjured  up  rise  about  you  like 
golden  bubbles ;  later  horror  overwhelms  you :  "Up  out 
of  the  black  lake  reared  a  shadow,  a  nameless,  shape 
less  mass,  headless,  sightless,  gigantic,  gaping  from  end 
to  end."  This  power  of  magician  he  displays  most 
beautifully  in  An  Ideal  Idol,  which  is  Chapter  IV  of 
The  Green  Mouse,  and  part  of  the  first  story.  He  pur 
sues  his  uncanny  description  of  the  horrible  in  A  Mat 
ter  of  Interest  (in  The  Mystery  of  Choice,  1896). 
The  thermosaurus  in  A  Matter  of  Interest  is  a  close 
relative  of  the  sea-monster  in  Kipling's  A  Matter  of 
Fact,  copyright  in  1892.  It  is  interesting  to  compare 
the  tales,  to  notice  the  American  writer's  inventive 
facility  and  his  riot  of  imagination  in  contrast  to  the 
economy  and  greater  convincingness  of  Kipling. 

In  this  volume,  The  Mystery  of  Choice,  the  author 
continues  his  stories  of  the  supernatural.  The  Mes- 


64          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

senger,  a  ghost  tale,  covers  the  gap  from  1760  to  1896; 
it  uses  thirty-nine  skulls,  a  death's  head  moth  (the  mes 
senger)  and  the  gruesome  incident  of  the  Black  Priest 
by  way  of  steps  to  the  climax :  "We  were  looking  into 
the  eye-sockets  of  a  skull."  In  conjunction  with  the 
modern  Breton  setting,  with  the  simple  minor  char 
acters  of  the  action  and  with  the  lives  of  Lys  and  her 
husband,  they  produce  sufficient  plausibility  for  enter 
tainment.  At  the  other  extreme  from  this  longish 
story  is  "Passeur!"  a  brief  conte,  after  the  French 
models.  The  ghost  returns,  through  a  voice,  to  one 
who  wished  to  be  ferried  over  the  stream,  answering 
as  in  life  to  his  "Passeur !",  "Via  Monsieur!"  He 
marvels,  "and  when  he  raised  his  eyes  he  saw  that  the 
Ferryman  was  Death." 

The  Haunts  of  Men  ( 1898)  is  characterized  by  four 
stories  of  the  Civil  War,  not  one  of  which,  however, 
is  so  satisfying  as  In  the  Name  of  the  Most  High  (in 
The  Maker  of  Moons).  The  best  story  in  the  volume 
is  The  Whisper.  One  of  the  first  fruits  of  the  China 
man  in  New  York,  it  furnished  seed  to  succeeding 
writers;  to-day  the  harvest  is  profuse.  That  the 
whisper  itself  effects  surprise  in  the  denouement  is 
noteworthy  because  Mr.  Chambers  so  infrequently  em 
ploys  a  terminal  shock.  The  poignant  drama  is  pre 
sented  with  the  economy  of  an  etching. 

The  Latin  Quarter,  too,  continues  to  find  representa 
tion,  and  the  familiar  figures  of  Elliott,  Clifford  et  al 
reappear.  Enter  the  Queen,  with  its  substitute  cornet- 


ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS  65 

player  who  did  not  play  was  probably  funny  when  it 
was  written — as  it  is  not  now.  Humor  is  largely  a 
matter  of  fashion  and  successive  eras  must  produce 
their  own  styles.  The  rattlesnake  in  Yo  Espero  and 
the  shark  that  was  the  Collector  of  the  Port  are 
proof  that  their  creator  was  still  pursuing,  with  an 
eye  to  the  reading  public,  tragic  signs  and  symbols. 
He  subdues  them  here  to  a  happy  end. 

Mr.  Chambers  has  a  genius  for  titles.  Occasionally 
he  adapts  a  well-worn  phrase,  again  he  chooses  an 
exotic  feminine  name,  frequently  he  uses  colors — 
green,  yellow,  red  and  blue — and  he  drew  from  the 
following  stanza  for  this  volume : 

"How  shall  we  seem  each  to  the  other,  when, 
On  that  glad  day,  immortal,  we  shall  meet — 

Thou  who,  long  since,  didst  pass  with  hastening  feet — 
I,  who  still  wait  here,  in  the  haunts  of  men  ?" 

A  Young  Man  in  a  Hurry  (1903)  consists  largely 
of  society  stories  of  the  superficial  variety.  The  title 
story  illustrates  adequately  the  setting,  the  character 
types,  and  the  method  of  the  author  throughout.  A 
young  man,  the  hero  of  the  narrative,  rushes  from  his 
office  to  a  cab  in  which  he  expects  to  find  his  waiting 
sister.  After  a  little,  he  discovers  that  the  lady,  who 
is  not  his  sister,  has  expected  her  brother  to  join  her. 
She  and  her  brother  were  to  hasten  to  Florida  to 
rescue  a  younger  sister  from  a  hurried  marriage.  It 
develops  that  the  hero  and  his  sister  were  in  a  hurry 


66          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

to  reach  St.  Augustine,  where  a  younger  brother  was 
about  to  marry  precipitately.  The  rest  is  easy,  includ 
ing  the  mating  of  the  two  who  meet  at  the  beginning. 
We  leave  them  looking  for  the  benevolent  clergyman 
whom  they  saw  immediately  as  they  entered  the  diner 
on  the  Eden  Limited  pulling  out  from  the  station. 
The  Pilgrim  and  One  Man  in  a  Million  introduce  lov 
ers  somewhat  less  headlong;  Pasque  Florida  varies 
the  young  love  theme  in  reuniting  a  divorced  couple. 
Mr.  Chambers  has  acquired  the  facility  of  moving 
about  with  the  idle  rich,  from  town  house  to  country 
estate — an  ease  he  has  used  to  great  gathering  of 
shekels  these  many  years. 

Having  followed  in  summary  Mr.  Chambers's  course 
in  writing  brief  fiction,  and  always  remembering  that 
a  number  of  his  novels  must  be  examined  for  his  com 
plete  progress,  we  approach  a  sharp  apex  in  The  Tree 
of  Heaven  (1907).  He  has  extended  his  chain  of 
stories;  but  he  has  not  since  projected  a  climactic  peak 
so  far  into  the  ether.  In  this* volume  he  expressed  in 
narrative  form  better  than  he  will  ever  express  again 
his  speculations  on  life  and  death  and  his  envisioning 
of  the  high  possibilities  of  spirit.  It  should  be  re 
membered  to  his  credit  that  he  used  the  title  a  dozen 
years  before  the  English  author.  Miss  Sinclair's  Tree 
of  Heaven  is  the  living  ailanthus,  however,  whereas 
that  of  Mr.  Chambers  is  one  woven  in  an  ancient  rug. 
Ghosts,  metempsychosis,  separation  of  soul  and  body 
and  allied  themes  underlie  most  of  the  dramas  here 


ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS  67 

enacted.  Singly  or  in  combination,  they  are  at  the 
basis  of  The  Carpet  of  Belshazzar,  The  Sign  of  Venus, 
The  Case  of  Mr.  Helmer,  The  Bridal  Pair,  and  Out 
of  the  Depths.  Loss  of  memory  and  its  restoration  he 
was  one  of  the  first  to  handle,  in  The  Golden  Pool. 
Many  changes  have  been  rung  on  this  motif,  down  to 
Wilbur  Daniel  Steele's  God's  Mercy  (Pictorial  Review, 
July,  1920)  and  all  manifestations  of  amnesia  and 
aphasia  possible  to  handle  in  the  shorter  story.  The 
Swastika  humorously  pits  the  power  of  the  swastika 
against  that  of  the  crystal,  and  half -seriously,  half- 
humorously  reflects  the  spirit  of  the  early  twentieth 
century  in  its  resurrection  of  rabbit  feet,  clover  leaves, 
horseshoes  and  other  luck  symbols.  The  Carpet  and 
The  Bridal  Pair  are  the  pick  of  the  volume;  the  first, 
for  glowing  imagination  and  conviction;  the  second, 
for  spiritual  beauty.  The  Carpet  is  a  powerful  or 
chestration  of  the  motif  first  sounded  in  The  Demoi 
selle  D'Ys.  It  is,  by  and  large,  the  finest  short  story 
Mr.  Chambers  ever  wrote. 

He  was  reflecting  the  spirit  of  the  age  in  other 
ways.  By  the  year  1908  the  use  of  the  wireless  tele 
graph  was  well  established,  and  the  fictionists  were 
following  the  trail  of  the  scientists.  Kipling's  Wire 
less  (Traffics  and  Discoveries,  1904)  suggested  that 
a  wireless  operating  plant  caught  a  message  from  the 
air  and  transmitted  it  to  a  drugstore  clerk.  Lines  from 
the  Ode  to  a  Nightingale  came  to  the  counterpart  of 
Keats  in  such  a  way  as  to  hint  that  the  spirit  of  Keats, 


68          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

or  the  same  controlling  force  which  impelled  him  to 
compose  the  Ode,  was  in  contact  with  the  sending  ap 
paratus,  and  was  disturbing  the  transmission  between 
the  two  experimental  stations.  Mr.  Chambers  sur 
passed  the  British  author  in  fancy  and  daring,  as  may 
be  observed  from  a  survey  of  The  Green  Mouse 
(1910).  Destyn  has  invented  a  machine  which,  tak 
ing  advantage  of  the  fact  that  the  earth  is  circum 
scribed  by  wireless  currents  of  electricity,  is  able  to 
intercept  the  subconscious  personalities  of  two  people 
of  opposite  sex  and  to  connect  them.  The  result  is 
union  which,  though  inevitable  in  the  course  of  the 
ages,  the  machine  has  accelerated.  It  aids  destiny  in 
pairing  off  and,  incidentally,  helps  the  author  to  achieve 
a  story  about  each  mating.  The  work  may  be  regarded 
as  so  many  of  its  companion  books  are  to  be  regarded : 
humorously  prophetic  of  a  distant  fact  or  gently  sati 
rical  of  those  persons  quick  to  catch  up  fads,  from 
mental  telepathy  to  Ouija. 

The  business  of  thought  transference  he  had  just 
satirized  in  the  same  fashion  in  Some  Ladies  in  Haste 
(1908).  The  link  that  binds  the  numbers  in  this 
volume  is  Manners,  with  his  uncanny  gift  of  sugges 
tion,  the  power  to  effect  radical  change  in  the  lives  of 
men  and  women,  and  to  provide  for  them  suitable 
mates.  Five  couples,  paired  off,  are  the  actors  in  the 
several  dramas.  Under  cover  of  his  larger  satirical 
purpose,  he  strikes  a  few  playful  blows  at  the  back- 
to-nature  cult  and  the  ideal  of  the  brotherhood  of  man; 


ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS  69 

at  the  same  time,  he  seizes  the  opportunity  for  ex 
ploiting  his  very  real  interest  in  butterflies.  He  might 
well  have  used  for  his  title  Some  Ladies  in  Trees:  the 
volume  opens  with  a  pursuit  that  ends  in  the  umbra 
geous  foliage  of  an  oak  and  closes  with  one  that  allows 
the  hero  to  rescue  the  heroine  from  the  crotch  of  a 
maple. 

In  The  Adventures  of  a  Modest  Man  (1911),  the 
author  returns  to  Paris.  The  thinnest  of  envelopes 
serves  to  hold  the  unrelated  stories,  produced  ostensibly 
as  fiction,  by  Williams,  a  character  in  the  outer  action. 
These  pseudo-efforts  of  Williams  include  lovely  artist 
models  in  New  York,  Vassar  girls  on  the  Caranay, 
and  French  countesses  on  the  Seine,  with  the  right 
gentleman  properly  directed  by  Fate,  Chance  and  Des 
tiny.  Grotesque,  if  readable,  some  of  these  Destiny 
driven  conclusions.  The  author  remarks  somewhere 
in  the  book,  "Everybody's  lives  are  full  of  grotesque 
episodes.  The  trouble  is  that  the  world  is  too  serious 
to  discover  any  absurdity  in  itself.  We  writers  have 
to  do  that  for  it."  Apology  or  justification,  this  state 
ment  explains  the  position  of  the  author  which  appar 
ently  shifts  from  running  with  the  hare  to  hunting 
with  the  hounds.  He  loves  nature,  for  example;  but 
he  recognizes  the  absurdity  in  a  fashion  of  the  hour 
which  equips  young  women  with  green  nets  and  three- 
cornered  envelopes  and  sends  them  in  pursuit  of  but 
terflies  along  the  Bronx  River,  or  which  commands 
them  to  discard  the  garments  of  the  modern  world  and, 


70          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

dressed  in  cheese-cloth,  armed  with  bow  and  arrow, 
to  roam  Dianas  on  well-conducted  estates.  .  .  .  "Eccen 
tricity  is  the  full-blown  blossom  of  mediocrity/'  he 
also  permits  one  of  his  heroes  to  confess. 

The  Better  Man,  technically  among  the  best  of  the 
author's  works,  represents  in  their  maturity  his  exag 
gerations  of  type  and  his  wizard-like  realization  of  the 
improbable.  The  first  five  stories  are  set  in  forest 
preserves  of  New  York  State;  The  Better  Man  has 
its  climax  in  Florida,  as  have  five  or  six  others  of  the 
fifteen  stories  in  the  volume.  The  ladies,  if  found 
in  rustic  setting,  are  not  native  to  it;  exotics  by  some 
chance  transplanted  to  the  backwoods  they  retain  amid 
primitive  conditions  their  hot-house  attributes,  as 
though  cherished  by  all  the  safeguards  known  to  civili 
zation.  In  real  life  they  would  wither  or  freeze  or 
become  toughened  to  endure.  The  villain  is,  usually, 
some  native  who  is  lawless,  though  supposedly  a  rep 
resentative  of  order,  and  who  has  the  fragile  lady  in 
his  power.  The  hero  is,  according  to  formula,  an 
agent  of  the  Forest  Conservation  Commissioner,  every 
inch  a  man,  polished  of  English  and  manner  and 
dress.  The  outcome  might  be  fraught  with  consider 
able  anxiety  in  real  life,  granted  existence  of  previous 
conditions.  But  there  is  never  a  doubt  over  the  denoue 
ment  of  these  ruffian  and  gentleman  contests.  The 
brave  hero,  without  undue  damage  to  scenery  or  vil 
lain,  bears  the  fair  lady  back  to  her  proper  setting  of 
culture  and  refinement. 


ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS  71 

^Barbarians  (1917)  rises  above  the  preceding  collec 
tion  by  virtue  of  its  theme — the  Great  War — the  au 
thor's  interest  in  the  subject  and  his  proximity  to  it. 
Spite  of  his  interest,  he  was  too  remote  from  the 
Civil  and  the  Franco-Prussian  Wars  to  succeed  with 
them  as  short-story  material.  Here  he  combines  his 
knowledge  of  France,  his  sympathy  with  the  character 
of  the  French  girl  and  his  antagonism  to  the  "bar 
barians"  in  a  series  of  appealing  and  sometimes  thrill 
ing  dramatic  pictures.  His  butterfly  flits,  too,  through 
a  story  or  so.  It  has  become  his  symbol,  as  it  was 
Whistler's.  A  thing  beautiful  in  form,  color,  and 
motion;  tenuous,  fragile,  the  thing  of  a  season;  and 
yet  emblematic  of  the  soul.  Perhaps  it  would  have 
no  place  in  a  Gradgrindian  scheme  of  the  universe.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Chambers  once  asserted  that  he  has  no  hard 
and  fast  rule  of  composition.  "Sometimes  I  begin 
with  the  last  chapter,  sometimes  in  the  middle,  and 
sometimes  I  lay  out  an  elaborate  skeleton."  He  also 
indicates  that  he  is  under  no  delusion  as  to  the  status 
of  authors.  At  best,  he  says,  they  "are  not  held  in 
excessive  esteem  by  really  busy  people,  the  general 
idea  being — which  is  usually  true — that  literature  is 
a  godsend  to  those  unfitted  for  real  work.  But  very 
few  authors  comprehend  what  is  their  status  in  a 
brutal,  practical  and  humorous  world."  So  he  wrote 
in  Number  Seven  (The  Better  Man).  The  hero  of 
the  same  story,  a  man  of  literary  aspirations,  prob 
ably  voices  the  author's  thoughts  when  he  admits  in  a 


72          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

note  to  the  heroine :  "You  are  quite  right :  art  is  work 
never  idleness/' 

Volumes  of  short  stories  by  Mr.  Chambers: 

The  King  in  Yellow,  1895. 
The  Maker  of  Moons,  1895. 
The  Mystery  of  Choice,  1896. 
The  Haunts  of  Men,  1898. 
A  Young  Man  in  a  Hurry,  1903. 
The  Tracer  of  Lost  Persons,  1906. 
The  Tree  of  Heaven,  1907. 
Some  Ladies  in  Haste,  1908. 
The  Green  Mouse,  1910. 
Adventures  of  a  Modest  Man,  1911. 
^  The  Better  Man,  1916. 
Barbarians,  1917. 


CHAPTER  V 

IRVIN    S.    COBB 

IRVIN  S.  COBB,  of  whom  I  have  the  honor  to 
be   whom,   was   born,    successfully,    in    Paducah, 
Kentucky,    almost    exactly    one    hundred    years 
after  the  signing  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
in  your  own  city,  thus  making  it  possible  for  future 
generations  to  celebrate  both  centennials  simultaneous 
ly  in  1976.     He  is  a  member  of  an  old,  or  Southern, 
family,  his  family  being  fully  as  old  as  any  Southern 
family  known.     It  extends  back  without  a  break  to 
the  Garden  of  Eden." 

So  wrote  Irvin  Shrewsbury  Cobb  to  the  editor  of 
The  Saturday  Evening  Post  for  the  issue  of  October 
6,  1917.  As  Ellis  Parker  Butler,  his  fellow  humorist, 
puts  it :  "He  came  along  as  a  sort  of  Centennial  Sou 
venir,  with  the  miniature  liberty  bells  that  the  Pa- 
ducahns  keep  on  their  what-nots."  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  his  birthday  is  June  23rd. 

His  school  days  passed  uneventfully  enough,  their 
monotony  broken  by  much  reading  of  Cap  Collier's 
dime  novels  in  a  corner  of  the  barn  loft.  At  the  age 
of  sixteen  he  drove  an  ice-wagon;  at  sixteen  and  a 

73 


74          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

half  he  became  contributor  to  the  local  paper.  He 
wrote  because  he  wished  to  illustrate;  but  later — he 
declares  it  was  in  a  spirit  of  pure  unselfishness — he 
decided  to  give  up  illustrating  for  writing.  At  the 
age  of  nineteen,  in  the  year  1895,  he  became  editor 
of  The  News  and  was  advertised  as  the  youngest  man 
aging  editor  of  a  daily  paper  in  the  United  States.  He 
wrote  a  column  headed  "Sour  Mash"  and,  according 
to  Robert  H.  Davis,  stacked  up  more  libel  suits  than  a 
newspaper  of  limited  capital  and  with  a  staff  of  local 
attorneys  could  handle  before  he  moved  to  Louisville. 
He  was  attached  to  the  staff  of  the  Louisville  Evening 
Post  in  1898,  and  remained  there  until  his  marriage 
to  Laura  Spencer  Baker,  of  Savannah,  Georgia,  June 
12,  1900.  Mr.  Cobb  then  returned  to  Paducah,  where 
he  was  managing  editor  of  the  News-Democrat  until 
1904. 

He  had  easily  become  one  of  the  best  known  re 
porters  throughout  the  South  and  determined  to  seek 
a  cosmopolitan  field  for  the  exercise  of  his  talent.  He 
arrived  in  New  York  in  1904.  Having  made  a  sys 
tematic  tour  of  the  newspaper  offices  without  suc 
cess,  he  was  fired  to  show  what  he  could  do  through 
correspondence.  He  sat  down  in  his  boarding  house 
room  and  wrote  every  city  editor.  By  return  mail  he 
received  offers  of  five  positions,  out  of  which  he  elected 
that  from  The  Evening  Sun. 

When  the  Portsmouth  Peace  Conference  met,  Mr. 
Cobb  was -sent  to  halp  report  it.  Finding  there  were 


IRVIN  S.  COBB  75 

enough  men  to  cover  the  proceedings,  he  wrote  on 
subjects  not  at  all  related  to  the  Conference  and  mailed 
them  to  his  paper.  The  distinction  of  these  articles 
gave  Mr.  Cobb  choice  of  work  on  any  paper  in  New 
York.  He  went  over  to  The  World  in  1905  and  re 
mained  there  as  staff  humorist  and  special  writer,  sup 
plying  The  Evening  World  and  the  Sunday  World 
with  a  humorous  feature  until  1911. 

In  Louisville  he  had  extended  his  local  reputation 
through  reporting  the  Goebel  murder  case;  in  New 
York,  through  his  report  of  the  Thaw  trial,  he  achieved 
a  high-water  mark  in  journalism. 

In  1907,  he  tried  his  hand  at  musical  comedy  and 
wrote  to  order  in  a  week's  time  Funabashi.  Mr.  Davis^ 
has  said  about  this  effort:  "The  absence  of  a  guil 
lotine  in  New  York  State  accounts  for  his  escape  from 
this  offense."  William  Johnston,  of  The  World, 
placed  it  one  of  three  mistakes  made  by  Mr.  Cobb  in 
New  York.  The  others  were  his  purchase  of  a  house 
in  Park  Hill,  and  leaving  The  World.  The  author 
himself  probably  felt  no  deep  stirrings  of  remorse  since 
he  repeated  his  offense  the  next  year  in  the  musical 
skit,  Mr.  Busybody.  Mr.  Davis,  who  was  on  the  staff 
of  the  Sunday  World  in  1903,  tells  of  Mr.  Cobb's 
popularity  at  The  World:  "He  held  levee  daily,  in  the 
city  room — a  conclave  that  abroad  would  have  been 
a  salon.  The  cubs  and  the  bosses,  the  stars  and  the 
stalk-horses,  the  best  and  the  worst  of  the  staff  at 
tended.  .  .  .  His  running-fire  of  conversation  is  like 


76          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

the  rattle  of  musketry.  In  New  York  Cobb  found  his 
voice.  He  got  the  chill  of  the  ice-wagon  out  of  his 
veins;  he  forgot  his  art  and  came  to  look  upon  man 
aging  editors  as  mere  casuals."  * 

While  he  was  on  The  World,  then,  Irvin  Cobb  rose 
to  first  rank  as  reporter.  And  if  there  is  a  subject 
he  is  sure  he  understands,  it  is  that  of  reporting.  "I 
know  how  to  go  out  and  get  a  news  story  and  how  to 
assemble  the  stuff  afterward,"  he  wrote  in  The  Ameri 
can  Magazine,  August,  1919.  "I  know  how  to  play 
on  a  news  story  as  though  it  were  a  concertina  or  a 
crush  hat;  which  is  to  say,  I  know  how  to  stretch  a 
small  story  out  to  the  length  of  a  column,  and  by 
the  same  token  how  to  pack  down  a  big  story  into  the 
compass  of  a  paragraph."  He  numbers  among  his 
assets  an  excellent  memory,  the  ability  to  photograph 
a  scene  mentally  and  stow  it  away  for  use,  and  above 
all,  a  nose  for  news,  or  sense  of  news  values.  He  has 
also  learned  by  long  training  to  produce  an  article 
in  the  briefest  time  of  any  desired  number  of  words. 
Experience  gave  him  this  gauge,  and  brought  him 
to  ripened  reporterhood.  At  the  age  of  forty-three 
he  stated  that  he  had  been  a  reporter  for  nearly  twenty- 
seven  years.  He  has  reported  for  daily  papers,  trade 
papers,  weekly  papers,  and  Sunday  papers ;  for  syndi 
cates,  press  associations,  periodicals  and  magazines. 

Lingering  on  Mr.  Cobb's  newspaper  work  is  neces 
sary  for  two  reasons.  First  of  all,  he  is  primarily  the 
*  The  American  Magasine,  May,  1911. 


IRVIN  S.  COBB  77 

journalist;  second,  his  journalism  has  a  direct  rela 
tion  to  and  bearing  upon  his  work  in  fiction.  His 
stories,  like  those  of  Richard  Harding  Davis,  own 
the  style-marks  of  the  reporter;  his  material  in  fiction 
is  drawn  from  the  scenes  of  his  reportorial  exploits. 
When  he  was  writing  The  County  Trot  (Back  Home), 
his  wife  marveled  at  his  life-like  pictures  of  the  Ken 
tucky  characters,  all  of  whom  he  had  really  known. 
She  asked  him  how  it  was  possible  for  him  to  re 
member  their  faces  after  the  lapse  of  so  many  years. 
He  said,  "Why,  I  can  close  my  eyes  and  see  the  knot 
holes  that  were  in  the  fence  around  that  fair-ground!" 
This  small  anecdote  discloses  observation  and  memory, 
as  the  story  itself  illustrates  his  fine  sense  of  propor 
tion.  No  insignificant  phase  of  his  artistry  is  this  of 
writing  to  scale. 

November,  1910,  The  Saturday  Evening  Post  pub 
lished  Mr.  Cobb's  first  short-story,  The  Escape  of  Mr. 
Trimm.  It  was  followed  by  a  number  of  other  tales; 
among  them  An  Occurrence  up  a  Side  Street,  which 
brought  Chaucer's  Pardoner's  Tale  to  date,  and  The 
Belled  Buzzard,  which  lifted  Mr.  Cobb  into  popular 
fame.  To  the  newspaper  world  the  name  of  Irvin 
Cobb  had  long  been  familiar  when,  in  1913,  the  vol 
ume  of  nine  stories  under  the  title  The  Escape  of  Mr. 
Trimm  appeared.  But  the  book  extended  his  popu 
larity  to  the  layman.  On  January  25,  1914,  The  New 
York  Times  published  a  list  of  best  stories  represent 
ing  the  opinions  of  current  story  writers.  Montague 


78          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Glass,  who  designed  Potash  and  Perlmutter,  placed 
first  O.  Henry's  A  Municipal  Report,  and  second  Irvin 
Cobb's  The  Belled  Buzzard.  Mary  Stewart  Cutting 
mentioned  it  one  of  four  "among  the  finest/'  Readers 
who  had  overlooked  it  searched  back  files  of  the  Post 
or  bought  the  book  which  contains  it.  A  number  of 
critics  to-day  regard  it  a  superlatively  wrought-out 
and  dramatically  presented  study  in  conscience.  The 
author's  processes  in  developing  fiction  may  be  illus 
trated  further  by  its  inception  and  germination.  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Cobb  were  walking  in  the  forest  near  her 
old  home  when,  noticing  the  birds  of  carrion  circling 
in  the  sky,  he  remarked,  "I  believe  I'll  write  a  story 
about  a  buzzard."  He  jotted  down  a  word  or  two 
in  his  note-book,  thrust  the  book  back  into  his  pocket 
— and  a  year  later  wrote  out  the  narrative. 

Since  1911  he  has  been  staff  contributor  to  The 
Saturday  Evening  Post.  Among  his  non-fictive  vol 
umes  embodying  Post  contributions  are :  Cobb's  Anat 
omy,  1912;  Cobb's  Bill  of  Fare,  1913;  Europe  Re 
vised,  1914;  Roughing  It  De  Luxe,  1914;  "Speaking 

of  Operations " ,  1916,  and  Eating  in  Two  or  Three 

Languages,  1919.  The  chief  characteristic  of  all  these 
volumes  is  their  Cobbesque  brand  of  humor.  Whether 
he  offers  a  humorous  guide  to  dentist  or  waist-line, 
laughs  at  the  fakirs  in  the  realm  of  "vittles"  and 
music,  tells  what  the  average  American  has  long  felt 
about  English  bath-tubs  and  Venetian  ruins,  what 
the  tourist  of  the  Grand  Canyon  thinks  of  the  Cali- 


IRVIN  S.  COBB  79 

fornia  brag  and  pseudo-wild  young  men,  or  takes  you 
confidentially  and  frankly  with  him  into  the  operating 
room — it  matters  not.  He  effectively  combines  fact 
and  fun. 

In  1914,  when  War  was  declared,  Mr.  Cobb  made 
preparations  for  the  scene  of  action.  After  a  vacation 
at  North  Hatley,  Canada,  he  sailed  for  Europe.  In 
1915  appeared  Paths  of  Glory,  reprinted  from  The 
Post,  a  series  of  first-hand  impressions  from  his  visit 
to  the  Western  Front.  In  1918  was  published  The 
Glory  of  the  Coming,  a  volume  of  articles  written 
abroad  in  the  spring  and  summer  of  1918  and  cabled 
or  mailed  back  for  publication  at  home. 

On  April  25,  1915,  after  Mr.  Cobb's  return  from 
his  first  trip  to  the  scene  of  war,  several  hundred  of 
his  friends  gave  him  a  dinner  at  the  Waldorf  Hotel. 
The  toasts  and  telegrams  to  him  were  gathered  into 
a  small  volume,  Irvin  Cobb,  His  Book,  illustrated  by 
his  friends,  the  cartoonists.  J.  E.  Hodder-Williams's 
tribute  asserts  that  in  Europe  Paths  of  Glory  was  being 
proclaimed  the  most  vivid,  most  moving,  most  con 
vincing  of  all  books  on  the  Great  War. 

But,  meantime,  what  of  Mr.  Cobb's  fiction?  In 
1912,  as  it  chanced,  Back  Home  antedated  the  book 
in  which  his  first  story  appeared.  He  had  discovered 
that  the  real  Southerner  was  unknown  in  New  York, 
both  on  the  stage  and  in  magazines.  Either  he  was 
4  feudal  aristocrat  or  a  poor  white.  Much  as  O.  Henry 
in  The  Four  Million  broke  away  from  the  New  York 


80          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

type  and  created  a  new,  Irvin  Cobb  broke  from  the 
traditional  Southern  type  and  introduced  the  actual. 
He  wrote  of  the  men  and  women  in  the  South  as  he 
had  known  them  in  an  average  community.  For  most 
of  his  characters  he  had  real  models  and  for  some  of' 
the  stories  he  had  substantial  basis  in  fact.  Judge 
Priest,  of  Back  Home  and  succeeding  volumes,  is  the 
best  representative  Southerner  ever  found  in  litera 
ture.  We  who  know  the  South  of  Tennessee,  Ken 
tucky,  Mississippi  and  Alabama  know  him  well.  We 
have  heard  his  high,  whiny  voice,  and  noticed  that  he 
speaks  dialect  in  every-day  conversation  but  pure  Eng 
lish  when  he  sits  in  judgment ;  we  have  seen  his  pinky- 
red  face,  bald  head  and  fringe  of  whiskers,  his  baggy 
trousers,  bunchy  umbrella  and  palm-leaf  fan.  We 
have  marveled  at  the  keenness  of  his  mind,  albeit  he 
will  not  again  see  sixty-five.  We  know  his  room  in 
the  court  house,  his  cluttered  desk  and  the  drawer  into 
which  he  surreptitiously  thrusts  his  latest  dime  novel. 
We  are  familiar  with  his  friends,  acquaintances  and 
helpers:  Dr.  Lake,  Sergeant  Jimmy  Bagby,  Comrade 
Pressley  Harper,  Deputy  jailer  Dink  Bynum,  his  cook 
Dilsey,  and  his  body-servant  Jeff.  If  the  author  who 
has  created  Judge  Priest  had  written  nothing  but 
the  tales  in  which  the  old  Judge  appears  he  would 
have  the  right  to  a  tablet  in  the  Hall  of  Fame. 

In  Back  Home  the  stories  architecturally  fittest  and 
by  their  matter  best  calculated  to  evoke  tears  or  laugh 
ter  are  Words  and  Music,  reminiscent  of  the  Civif 


IRVIN  S.  COBB  81 

War;  The  County  Trot,  touching  the  state  sport;  The 
Mob  from  Massac,  interpreting  mob  behavior;  Up 
Clay  Street,  describing  a  circus  that  will  rouse  the 
most  blase  reader  and  lead  him  on  to  the  saddest  cli 
max  ever  combined  with  a  circus ;  When  the  Fighting 
Was  Good,  telling  how  Pressley  Harper  was  given 
a  chance  to  redeem  an  error  and  escape  two  years  in 
the  penitentiary;  and  Strategem  and  Spoils,  recount 
ing  the  Judge's  adventures  in  New  York  with  a  certain 
company  of  shearers.  The  presence  of  the  Judge  in 
each  holds  together  the  ten  stories. 

Old  Judge  Priest  (1916)  continues  the  chronicles 
of  the  Judge  and  his  people.  The  general  level  of 
excellence  meets  that  of  the  former  series,  the  wor 
thiest  instances  being:  The  Lord  Provides,  which 
recounts  the  Christian  burial  of  a  girl  who  had  gone 
wrong;  A  Blending  of  the  Parables,  which  describes 
a  reunion  of  Company  B ;  Judge  Priest  Comes  Back, 
and  A  Chapter  from  the  Life  of  an  Ant,  in  which  the 
old  man  respectively  takes  a  ruling  hand  in  a  political 
situation  and  turns  detective. 

Local  Color  also  appeared  in  1916.  The  stories 
collected  under  this  title  were  written  for  The  Post 
in  1914,  1915  and  1916,  as  were  those  in  Old  Judge 
Priest.  But  Mr.  Cobb's  matter  here  finds  diversifica 
tion.  An  old  New  York  theater  is  the  setting  for 
The  Great  Auk,  Fourteenth  Street  and  Third  Avenue 
and  the  Jefferson  Market  court-house  for  The  Field 
of  Honor;  the  city  and  Sing  Sing  for  Local  Color. 


S2          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

'First  Corinthians,  The  Eyes  of  the  World  and  Enter 
the  Villain  are,  also,  New  York  stories.  Enter  the 
Villain  is  reminiscent  of  the  author's  newspaper  ex 
perience  as  surely  as  The  Great  Auk  resulted  from 
his  incursions  into  drama.  Blacker  Than  Sin  and  The 
Smart  Aleck  have  Southern  settings  and  characters. 
The  only  mordaciously  humorous  story  in  the  whole 
lot  is  The  Smart  Aleck.  The  first-mentioned  three 
of  New  York  locale  are  the  best,  and  they  are  tragic. 

Those  Times  and  These  (1917)  continues  the  di 
versity  of  local  color  and  points  up,  here  and  there, 
the  difference  between  past  and  present.  In  technic 
and  interest  the  volume  falls  below  the  high  average 
set  ty  its  predecessors.  Judge  Priest  is  the  hero  of 
Ex-Fightiri  Billy;  a  doctor,  of  the  rather  poetical  and 
allegorical  And  There  Was  Light  (a  new  note  for  Mr. 
Cobb) ;  young  French  warriors  are  the  pathetic  heroes 
of  The  Garb  of  Men. 

Fibble,  D.D.  (1916),  and  The  Life  of  the  Party 
(1919),  the  first  a  novelette,  the  second  a  longish 
short-story,  are  inconsequential  from  a  literary  point 
of  view.  Their  chief  asset  for  Mr.  Cobb  lies  in  their 
extension  of  his  humor.  Fibble,  D.D.,  a  burlesque  of 
a  clerical  type  all  too  familiar,  suffers  from  follow 
ing  Mr.  Tarkington's  Kinosling  of  the  Penrod  stories. 
T]ie  Life  of  the  Party,  a  mad  extravaganza,  is  a  mo 
tion-picture  produced  on  the  printed  page. 

From  Place  to  Place  (1920)  contains  stories  pub 
lished  in  1918  and  1919  in  The  Post,  The  Red  Book 


IRVIN  S.  COBB  8$ 

and  All  Story  magazines.  From  whatever  cause  or 
explanation,  the  author  returns  in  this  volume  to  his 
best  accomplishment.  The  Gallowsmith,  Boys  Will  Be 
Boys,  The  Luck  Piece,  Hoodwinked,  and  The  Bull 
Called  Emily  run  the  scale  from  the  horrifies  of  the 
hangman  through  the  pathos  of  Peep  O'Day's  belated 
boyhood  to  the  laugh  in  Emily.  South  and  North 
meet :  Mr.  Cobb  is  now  equally  at  home  in  each. 

So  far,  this  author's  greatest  services  to  fiction  have 
lain  in  the  interpretation  of  South  to  North  and  of 
generation  to  generation.  He  once  wrote  an  article 
in  which  he  summed  up  his  relation  to  temporal  affairs, 
saying  he  was  on  the  spot  "when  the  audible  celluloid 
cuff,  E.  P.  Roe,  the  pug  dog,  the  Congress  gaiter,  the 
hammer-gun,  the  safety  bicycle,  the  mustache  cup,  par- 
chesi,  the  catcher  who  took  'em  off  the  bat  with  his 
bare  hands,  the  peach-kernel  watch  charm,  the  pousse 
cafe,  the  operation  for  dehorning  the  human  appen 
dix,  and  the  Dowie  movement  gave  way,  inch  by  inch, 
to  the  spit-ball,  the  automatic  ejector,  the  rest-cure, 
the  cold-storage  egg,  Henry  Ford,  the  cabaret,  Orville 
and  Wilbur  Wright,  Eat-and-Grow  Thin,  Pay-and- 
grow  thinner,  rural  free  delivery,  the  imported  Scotch 
niblick,  Eleanor  Glyn,  middling-meat  at  forty-two 
cents  a  pound  and  stewed  prunes  at  four  bits  a  portion 
in  any  first-class  restaurant/'  *  Small  wonder  that 
with  an  appreciation,  even  meticulous,  of  the  foibles 
of  human  beings  as  he  sees  them  "looking  both  ways 
*  The  American  Magazine,  May,  1917. 


84          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

at  forty"  he  should  infuse  into  his  fiction  the  human 
quality  which  distinguishes  it  from  the  work  of  others 
equally  good  in  technic. 

In  workmanship  he  has  been  compared  to  Foe  and 
Maupassant  and  Kipling;  in  his  sense  of  humor  to 
Mark  Twain.  But  these  comparisons  are  inept.  His 
Southern  origin,  his  heritage  from  a  most  American 
father  and  mother,  and  his  training  in  journalism  offer 
points  of  contact  in  one  way  or  another  with  each  of 
the  objects  of  comparison.  But  the  same  forces  con 
spired  to  bestow  upon  him  an  unapproachable  indi 
viduality. 

Mr.  Cobb's  short-story  volumes: 

Back  Home,  1912. 

The  Escape  of  Mr.  Trimm,  1913. 

Old  Judge  Priest,  1916. 

Local  Color,  1916. 

Those  Times  and  These,  1917. 

The  Life  of  th$  Party,  1919. 

From  Place  to  Place,  1920. 


CHAPTER  VI 

JAMES  BRENDAN  CONNOLLY 

THOSE  who  respond  to  the  call  of  the  sea  find  in 
the  stories  of  James  Brendan  Connolly  a 
peculiar  satisfaction  and  delight  to  be  en 
countered  nowhere  else  in  modern  fiction.  The  sea 
story  inevitably  suggests  the  name  of  Joseph  Conrad 
but  comparison  between  his  romances  and  Mr.  Con 
nolly's  simple  accounts  of  the  daring  and  reckless  deeds 
of  brave  men,  of  the  sea  and  plunging  boats,  would 
be  inept.  In  this  American  writer's  work  there  is 
none  of  the  strangeness,  the  exoticism  which  mark  the 
Conrad  line,  nor  is  there  any  of  the  self-consciousness 
which  for  many  readers  mars  the  later  stories  of 
Joseph  Conrad. 

Mr.  Connolly  writes  chiefly  of  the  sea  and  of  the 
men  who  follow  it,  reproducing  with  gripping  realism 
the  actual  life  of  New  England  deep-sea  fishermen. 
Vividly  he  pictures  the  life  on  board  of  the  hardy 
Gloucestermen,  at  the  same  time  revealing  the  spirit 
of  romance  and  adventure  which  lends  glamour  to 
their  humble  occupation.  Mr.  Connolly  is  occupied  in 
all  of  his  stories  with  elementary  passions  and  emotions 

85 


86          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

— courage,  fear,  joy  and  sorrow,  love  and  hate — hence 
their  universality  of  appeal.  He  is  local,  it  is  true, 
as  Thomas  Hardy  and  Kipling  are,  in  the  sense  that  he 
has  chosen  to  write  chiefly  of  a  certain  area  which  he 
knows  and  loves;  but  he  is  not  provincial.  Whether 
he  tells  of  a  bull-fight  in  Lima,  a  Christmas  Handicap 
in  Manchester,  or  a  smuggling  episode  in  St.  Pierre 
Miquelon,  his  men  preserve  their  traditions  and  sense 
of  race — they  are  Americans  beyond  doubt,  Americans 
hailing  from  "that  abode  of  modern  vikings,  the  fishing 
port  of  Gloucester.'*  In  every  tale  these  men  move 
as  living  beings  imbued  with  a  spirit  of  kinship  with 
the  sea,  men  who  daily  look  death  in  the  face  con 
fronting  it  steadily,  unafraid. 

So  well  does  Mr.  Connolly  know  the  sea  and  sailors 
that  the  conviction  is  forced  upon  us  that  he  has  ex 
perienced  many  of  the  adventures  he  describes  with 
such  wealth  of  realistic  detail.  Not  such  a  writer  is 
he  as  the  "  'n'  author"  ironically  described  in  his  Hiker 
Joy :  "At  nine-thirty  every  morning  he'd  take  a  seat 
in  front  of  the  fire-place,  in 'Velvet  slippers  and  a 
corduroy  coat  an'  dope  out  about  places  'n'  people  he 
never  saw  nor  nobody  else." 

James  B.  Connolly  has  written  no  autobiographical 
sketches  for  publication  as  have  many  of  our  writers, 
nor  has  he  revealed  himself  in  lengthy  paragraphs  in 
his  work.  Nevertheless  the  reader  gains  a  definite  im 
pression  of  personality  from  his  stories ;  and  we  know 
that  all  art  is  partly  autobiographical.  A  glance  at  the 


JAMES  BRENDAN  CONNOLLY          87 

outline  of  James  Brendan  Connolly's  life,  given  in 
Who's  Who,  stimulates  the  imagination;  a  background 
of  varied  experiences  indeed  lies  behind  his  stirring 
tales.  He  was  born,  as  we  should  expect  of  the  de 
lineator  of  New  England  seafaring  men,  in  a  great  sea 
port,  South  Boston,  Mass.,  in  1868,  son  of  John  and 
Ann  (O'Donnell).  He  tells  that  his  "earliest  memories 
are  of  loafing  days  along  the  harbor  front  and  the 
husky-voiced,  roaring  fellows  coming  ashore  in  the 
pulling  boats  from  the  men-o'-war".  Some  of  his 
education  he  received  in  the  public  and  parochial  schools 
of  Boston,  and  he  spent  also  a  few  months  in  the 
scientific  school  of  Harvard. 

From  1892-1895  he  was  clerk,  inspector  and  sur 
veyor  with  the  U.  S.  Engineers'  Corps  at  Savannah, 
Georgia.  That  he  himself  possessed  the  attributes  of 
physical  strength  and  endurance  characteristic  of  his 
heroes  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  in  1896  he  won  the 
first  Olympic  championship  of  modern  times  at  Athens. 
This  feat  later  enabled  him  to  create  with  marvelous 
realism  the  atmosphere  in  his  soul-stirring  An  Olympic 
Victor  (1908),  an  expanded  short  story  in  which  he 
draws  upon  his  knowledge  of  the  incidents  of  the 
race.  In  1898  he  served  with  the  9th  Massachusetts 
Infantry  U.  S.  V.,  and  was  at  the  siege  of  Santiago. 

On  September  28,  1904,  he  was  married  to  Elizabeth 
Frances  Hurley  of  South  Boston.  In  1907-1908  he 
served  in  the  United  States  navy,  gaining  experience 
and  knowledge  of  men  later  reflected  in  his  work.  Mr. 


88          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Connolly  had  the  privilege  from  President  Roosevelt 
of  cruising  on  United  States  war-ships,  gunboats,  de 
stroyers,  cruisers,  battleships.  Later,  through  the  good 
offices  of  Secretary  Daniels  he  became  acquainted  with 
submarines  and  navy  air-planes.  In  interesting  story- 
like  articles  such  as  The  Young  Draft  to  the  Front, 
The  Fleet  Stands  By,  and  others  written  in  1914  for 
Collier's  Weekly,  the  results  of  these  experiences  are 
pictured.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War  Mr.  Con 
nolly  learned  aboard  a  troopship  the  game  of  escorting 
ships  and  hunting  U-boats.  The  U-Boat  Hunters 
(1918)  and  his  latest  book  Hiker  Joy  (1920)  present 
in  different  fashions  his  observation  of  some  of  the 
perils  of  the  late  war. 

Such  in  brief  is  the  life  of  James  Brendan  Con 
nolly,  a  life  replete  with  activity  and  adventure  with 
the  sea  playing  always  the  dominant  role.  Surely  it 
may  be  said  of  him,  as  of  Conrad,  "Life  has  taught 
him  many  things,  and  the  great  charge  of  those  that 
travel  the  seas  has  taught  him  one  thing  mainly,  that 
fidelity  to  a  trust  is  the  supreme  triumph  and  its  be 
trayal  the  supreme  dishonour  of  a  man's  life.  Honour, 
loyalty,  faith  crown  his  conceptions,  and  he  involves 
in  them  whatever  beauty  and  strength  is  discernible 
in  man's  desire  and  achievement." 

Mr.  Connolly  has  been  a  frequent  contributor  to 
magazines,  his  contributions  comprising  short  stories 
and  songr  of  the  sea,  and  narrative-descriptive-critical 
articles  published  in  Scribner's,  Harper's,  The  Satur- 


JAMES  BRENDAN  CONNOLLY          89 

day  Evening  Post,  Collier's,  Everybody's,  Metropol 
itan,  Outlook,  American,  Hampton,  Hearsfs,  Sunset, 
Outing,  Harper's  Weekly,  and  Current  Literature.  The 
best  of  this  work  has  been  collected  and  published  in 
several  volumes  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

The  first  published  book  of  Mr.  Connolly's,  Jeb 
Hutton  (1902),  a  story  for  boys  of  the  life  of  a 
Georgia  boy,  is  wholesome,  spirited  and  full  of  the 
adventure  dear  to  the  heart  of  youth.  Reviewers  have 
likened  it  in  tone  and  spirit  to  Captains  Courageous, 
and  in  popularity  with  juvenile  readers  it  undoubtedly 
ranks  with  Kipling's  classic. 

But  it  is  with  the  short  stories  of  Mr.  Connolly  that 
the  present  writer  is  concerned.  The  first  volume  of 
these,  Out  of  Gloucester,  published  in  1902,  consists 
of  six  "ripping  good  stories"  of  ocean  adventure.  As 
a  whole  the  group  gives  a  graphic  account  of  life  on 
board  a  fisherman  and  testifies  to  the  author's 
familiarity  with  the  hard-driving  Gloucester  skipper 
and  his  struggles  with  the  sea.  That  Mr.  Connolly's 
sympathy  is  not  limited  to  the  Gloucestermen  is  shown 
in  A  Fisherman  of  Costla,  a,  moving  little  tale  in  which 
the  writer  reveals  his  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
racial  characteristics  of  the  Irish  fisherman.  Tender 
hearted,  unselfish  Gerald  Donohue  who  risks  "making 
a  widder  of  Mora  and  orphans  of  the  childer,"  not 
for  money  but  for  the  sake  of  an  old  friend's  children 
is  a  fine  ideal  portrait,  one  which  lingers  in  the  memory. 
In  the  delightful  extravagance  of  Clancy  we  see  Mr. 


90         OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Connolly's  gay  humor  at  its  height.  He  has  created  in 
Tommy  Clancy  a  character  rivaling  Kipling's  Mul- 
vaney  in  interest  and  suggestiveness.  Like  Mulvaney, 
Clancy  has  been  "rejuced" ;  "I've  been  three  times  dis 
rated — three  times  I've  been  skipper  and  three  times 
back  to  the  forehold.  That's  pretty  near  the  record 
for  a  man  of  thirty-six.  That's  all,  thirty-six.  A 
little  gray  around  the  temples  and  a  little  strained  in  the 
heart  but  only  thirty-six,  Old  Man." 

The  Deep  Sea's  Toll  (1905),  consists  of  eight  stories 
of  the  Gloucester  fishermen,  their  very  titles  proving 
them  similar  in  spirit  to  those  of  the  first  collection — 
The  Sail-carriers,  Dory-mates,  On  Georges  Shoalsf 
and  others — stories  of  deep-sea  adventure  which  sug 
gest  that  the  fisherman's  is  the  hardest  life  a  man  can 
choose.  In  these  tales  the  author  reveals  a  knowledge 
of  seafaring  men  and  their  lives  born  of  close  asso 
ciation. 

The  thirteen  tales  in  The  Crested  Seas  (1907),  also 
present  the  courageous,  reckless  exploits  of  the  Glouces- 
termen  with  many  of  the  old  characters  reappearing 
in  new  roles — Wesley  Marrs  and  Tommy  Clancy  the 
sail-carriers,  Dan  Coleman  the  soft-hearted,  Martin 
Carr  the  good  natured,  and  others  of  the  brave  crew 
that  Mr.  Connolly  loves  to  write  about.  Not  alone 
does  the  writer  sound  the  note  of  adventure  in  these 
stories ;  in  The  Blasphemer,  The  Illimitable  Senses,  and 
The  Drawn  Shutter  he  discloses  his  understanding  of 
the  psychology  of  the  men  of  the  sea,  and  his  belief 


JAMES  BRENDAN  CONNOLLY  91 

in  the  sea's  mysterious  influences.  The  Illimitable 
Senses,  the  most  powerful  of  the  collection,  piques  the 
imagination  like  a  tale  of  Foe's.  Mr.  Connolly  tells 
of  a  strange  experience  befalling  "the  most  blast- 
phemous  crew  that  ever  sailed  out  of  Gloucester",  men 
who  invoked  the  devil,  defied  the  Almighty,  and  pro 
faned  sacred  things.  A  conversation  touching  on 
telepathy,  psychic  force,  wireless  telegraphy,  and  the 
limited  senses  of  people  of  narrow  vision,  lifts  the 
story,  despite  its  lack  of  structural  coherence,  to  a  high 
plane  of  interest.  Its  length  makes  quoting  impossible; 
to  appreciate  the  largeness  of  Mr.  Connolly's  attitude 
toward  the  mysteries  of  suggestion,  telepathy  and 
things  psychical  one  must  read  the  conversation  in  its 
entirety.  The  man  of  the  sea,  he  says  in  closing, 
"is  never  a  sceptic;  and  so  to  him  nothing  is  impos 
sible."  The  story  ends  in  a  way  somewhat  reminiscent 
of  Fitz  James  O'Brien's  What  Was  It?  A  Mystery. 
"What  was  it?  Was  it — A  hundred  hypotheses  took 
shape  in  the  passenger's  brain.  But  no,  for  thirty  years 
the  fleet  had  passed  up  that  question,  and  in  the  fleet 
were  those  who  dwelt  ever  on  the  brink  of  the  Great 
Crossing  and  who  dwelt  there  had  thoughts  beyond 
the  measure  of  the  roof-bound  peoples." 

Sea  stories  of  the  same  type  as  those  in  his  earlier 
books  appear  in  Open  Water  (1910),  but  in  The  Emi 
grants,  Gree  Gree  Bush,  and  The  Christmas  Handicap, 
Mr.  Connolly  demonstrates  his  ability  to  handle  effec 
tively  the  situations  which  arise  on  shore.  Two  of  the 


92          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

sea  stories  charge  liner  captains  with  incompetency 
in  time  of  danger;  reading  them  one  is  left  with  the 
uncomfortable  sense  that  the  writer  has  not  drawn 
upon  his  fancy  alone  for  these  tales.  The  pathos  of 
the  "old  mother's"  love  for  little  Michel,  her  grand 
son,  and  old  Joseph's  sad  and  patient  devotion  to  Sarah 
make  The  Emigrants  a  poignantly  appealing  sketch. 
Strikingly  different  in  emotional  effect  is  Gree  Gree 
Bush,  a  story  which  shows  the  black  heart  of  a  white 
man  on  Africa's  west  coast.  It  is  a  tale  of  horror, 
ghastly  throughout.  The  brutal  realism  of  the  con 
clusion  lingers  unpleasantly  in  the  memory  even  though 
ethically  we  rejoice  in  the  retribution  which  overtakes 
the  unspeakable  Bowles.  "  'Stand  up,  you !'  I  said  to 
Bowles,  and  took  him  and  set  him  on  his  feet.  And 
he  stood  there — as  well  as  he  could.  And  I  brought 
the  war  club  down — as  if  I  was  driving  a  stake. 
He  went  a  foot  deep  into  the  mud.  And  his  head  was 
spread  out  like  a  red  cauliflower.'  " 

In  this  collection  some  of  the  stories  are  not  pleasant, 
but  the  book  ends  happily  with  The  Christmas  Handi 
cap.  The  master  touch  is  revealed  in  this  tale  of  a 
professional  runner,  Ned  King.  The  climactic  point 
is  reached  in  the  champion's  dramatic  recital  of  the 
suspense  of  the  contest,  the  final  burst  of  speed  which 
won  the  'cap.  And,  as  in  many  of  the  stories,  the 
denouement  has  to  do  with  what  Mr.  Connolly  calls 
humble,  human,  eternal  love — "the  greatest  sprinter 
that  ever  laced  a  shoe"  is  reunited  at  last  with  his  wife 


JAMES  BRENDAN  CONNOLLY          93 

and  child.  There  is  stark  human  interest  in  the  simple 
conclusion. 

The  eight  stories  in  the  volume  entitled  Wide  Courses 
(1911),  possess  the  interest  and  fascination  of  the 
earlier  stories,  some  in  the  delightful  humorous  vein 
of  Mr.  Connolly,  others  in  the  dramatic  key  he  most 
often  touches,  "the  key  of  man  in  his  indomitable 
courage  doing  battle  with  storm  and  wave,  with  the 
hardships  of  life  that  have  hardened  him."  The  Seiz 
ure  of  the  Aurora  Borealis  and  Don  Quixote  Kieran, 
Pump-Man  relate  in  amusing  fashion  tales  of  sailors' 
fights;  in  the  first  a  thirty-pound  turkey  figures  as  a 
weapon,  in  the  latter  we  meet  "a  twentieth  century 
Don  Quixote  with  a  wallop  in  each  hand"  and  a  "bruis 
ing  bosun".  Obviously,  this  is  humor  of  a  rough-and- 
tumble  variety,  but  in  Laying  the  Hose-Pipe  Ghost, 
with  its  sixty-eight  endorsements  on  a  document,  Mr. 
Connolly's  mastery  of  the  finer  shades  of  humor  is 
evident  in  the  ironical  treatment  of  naval  red-tape. 
Light-Ship  67,  in  which  Bud  Harty  goes  to  death  in 
order  to  save  the  husband  of  the  woman  he  loved,  is 
the  strongest  story  in  the  collection,  dramatic  in  con 
struction  and  intensely  interesting  throughout. 

Although  Sonnie-Boy's  People  (1913),  does  not 
bear  a  title  suggestive  of  the  sea,  seven  of  the  nine 
dashing  tales  nevertheless  recount  the  adventures  of 
seafaring  men  and  ships.  The  story  from  which  the 
collection  takes  its  title  etches  an  ideal  portrait  of  an 
engineer,  a  man  of  genius,  who  in  days  of  materialism 


94          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

was  strong  enough  to  set  aside  the  allurements  of 
money  and  fame,  enduring  exile  and  hardship  that 
his  country  might  be  served.  Mr.  Connolly  handles 
with  supreme  delicacy  the  subsidiary  line  of  interest 
in  the  story,  the  exquisite  romance  of  Andie  Balfe  and 
Marie  Welkie,  the  idealist's  sister.  The  best  of  the 
collection,  The  Last  Passenger,  recalls  the  loss  of  the 
Titanic.  The  interest  lies  in  the  author's  convincing 
portrayal  of  the  spiritual  reactions  of  those  on  board 
the  doomed  ship.  Nowhere  is  Mr.  Connolly's  keen 
insight  into  human  nature  more  fully  revealed.  The 
characters  assume  an  actuality  almost  startling :  Lavis, 
the  man  of  mystery,  Linnell,  the  engineer,  Cadogan 
whose  struggle  holds  the  centre  of  interest,  and  the 
pathetic  Polish  mother  with  her  babe,  all  are  imbued 
with  the  very  breath  of  life.  The  sheer  dramatic 
force  of  the  denouement  alone  marks  the  story  as  one 
of  the  strongest  Mr.  Connolly  has  written. 

Undoutedly  the  high  water  mark  of  Mr.  Connolly's 
achievement  in  fictive  writing  is  represented  by  The 
Trawler,  a  story  which  won  first  prize  in  Collier's 
$2,500  Short  Story  Contest  in  1914.  The  judges,  Ida 
M.  Tarbell,  the  late  Theodore  Roosevelt,  and  Mark 
Sullivan  were  agreed  not  only  in  according  it  first  place 
in  the  competition,  but  also  in  estimating  it  as  worthy 
of  a  permanent  place  in  our  literature;  Mr.  Roosevelt 
because  of  its  "elevation  of  sentiment,  rugged  knowl 
edge  of  rugged  men,  strength  and  finish  of  writing"; 
Mark  Sullivan  because  of  its  "excellence  as  a  picture  of 


JAMES  BRENDAN  CONNOLLY          95 

life  on  the  sea  at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  cen 
tury"  and  also  because  of  the  author's  "length  of  reach 
into  the  depths  of  human  nature,  a  sort  of  second  sight 
about  the  springs  of  human  emotion  and  human 
action." 

The  Trawler  is  a  powerfully  dramatic  story  with  a 
big  theme — the  story  of  a  man  who  died  that  another 
might  live.  Many  tales  of  sacrifice  have  been  written, 
the  very  device  used  by  Mr.  Connolly,  that  of  a  man's 
divesting  himself  of  his  garments  for  the  sake  of  his 
friend,  has  been  used  before;  but  in  no  story  does  the 
"greater  love"  shine  forth  with  so  pure  a  brightness. 
The  tale  is  told  with  characteristic  simplicity ;  the  move 
ment  is  direct,  swift,  and  inevitable  as  in  a  short  story 
of  De  Maupassant.  The  note  of  pathos  is  struck  at 
the  very  beginning  when  Hugh  Glynn  comes  to  the 
sorrowing  parents  to  give  the  details  of  the  death  of 
their  boy  Arthur  at  sea.  Mr.  Connolly  has  created 
a  strong  emotional  effect  by  the  use  of  suggestion  and 
restraint.  Who  can  fail  to  be  moved  by  the  quiet 
grief  so  simply  described?  "Jonn  Snow  at  the  kitchen 
table,  I  remember,  one  finger  still  in  the  pages  of  the 
black-lettered  Bible  he  had  been  reading  when  Hugh 
Glynn  stepped  in,  dropped  his  head  on  his  chest  and 
there  let  it  rest.  Mrs.  Snow  was  crying  out  loud.  Mary 
Snow  said  nothing,  nor  made  a  move  except  to  sit 
in  her  chair  and  look  to  where  in  the  light  of  the 
kitchen  lamp,  Hugh  Glynn  stood." 

As  the  story  progresses  inexorably  toward  its  climax 


96         OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

a  vivid  description  of  the  stormy  sea  grips  the  reader 
with  its  realism  and  holds  him  in  suspense.  "The  full 
gale  was  on  us  now — a  living  gale — and  before  the  gale 
the  sea  ran  higher  than  ever,  and  before  the  high  seas 
the  flying  dory.  Mountains  of  slate-blue  water  rolled 
down  into  valleys,  and  the  valleys  rolled  up  into  moun 
tains  again,  and  all  shifting  so  fast  that  no  man  might 
point  a  finger  and  say  'Here's  one,  there's  one!' — quick 
and  wild  as  that  they  were. 

"From  one  great  hill  we  would  tumble  only  to  fall 
into  the  next  great  hollow;  and  never  did  she  make 
one  of  her  wild  plunges  but  the  spume  blew  wide  and 
high  over  her,  and  never  did  she  check  herself  for 
even  the  quickest  of  breaths,  striving  the  while  to  breast 
up  the  side  of  a  mountain  of  water,  but  the  sea  would 
roll  over  her,  and  I'd  say  to  myself  again  'Now  at  last 
we're  gone !' " 

Mr.  Connolly  has  conceived  and  wrought  out  the 
heroic  character  of  Hugh  Glynn  so  superbly  that  one 
feels  certain  the  story  embodying  his  glorious,  albeit 
tragic,  fate  will  hold  a  secure  place  in  literature.  Much 
longer — as  are  nearly  all  of  Mr.  Connolly's  stories — 
than  the  average  modern  short  story,  consisting  as  it 
does  of  almost  12,000  words,  The  Trawler  compels  the 
reader's  attention  from  beginning  to  end,  playing  upon 
the  emotions  like  a  Sonata  Pathetique. 

Published  separately  in  book  form  in  1914,  The 
Trawler  lends  distinction  to  the  volume  called  Head 
Winds  (1916),  in  which  it  is  included.  This  collection 


JAMES  BRENDAN  CONNOLLY  97 

is  remarkable  for  the  variety  of  stories  which  it  con 
tains:  Gloucester  fishermen,  Continental  immigrants, 
American  blue-jackets,  newspaper  correspondents, 
soldiery  of  Central  America,  and  Mississippi  River 
steamboat  people  lend  to  its  pages  a  greatly  diversified 
interest.  Chavero  and  Colors!  two  stories  with  a  bearing 
on  United  States  intervention  in  Mexico,  The  Camera 
Man,  a  tale  of  adventure,  and  Quilt  en  have  a  touch 
of  melodrama  and  suggest  the  screen.  Easily  one 
can  imagine  an  audience  of  youthful  devotees  of  the 
silent  drama  following  with  breathless  interest  and 
vociferous  applause  the  exploits  of  the  gallant  marines 
in  conflict  with  the  Jenaguans,  or  Chiliano  Joe's  long 
quest  for  revenge.  Down  River,  a  story  of  Mis 
sissippi  roustabouts  combines  humor  with  the  under 
current  of  tragedy  inevitably  connected  with  the  con 
sideration  of  a  mingling  of  the  black  race  and  the 
white. 

With  the  notable  exception  of  The  Trawler,  Mother 
Machree  is  the  best  story  in  the  collection.  Like 
The  Fisherman  of  Costla,  it  is  a  sympathetic  study  of 
racial  characteristics,  a  story  of  the  heritage  an  Irish 
family  brought  to  America.  The  sorrows  of  Ann 
and  John  Lacy,  their  devotion  to  family  ties,  their 
love  and  loyalty  are  depicted  with  a  passion  and  in 
tensity  truly  Celtic.  Reviewers  have  ranked  The 
Trawler  and  Mother  Machree  with  the  most  dramatic 
of  modern  sea  stories. 

Like  the  stories  in  Head  Winds,  the  ten  in  Running 


98          OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Free  (1917),  are  diverse  in  content  and  treatment. 
The  Strategists  is  another  story  with  Central  American 
locale  and  a  touch  of  opera  boufTe;  wholly  humorous 
are  The  Weeping  Annie,  The  Bull  Fight,  and  Dan 
Magee:  White  Hope  in  their  lively  presentation  of  ad 
venture  at  sea  and  ashore ;  A  Bale  of  Blankets  with  its 
diverting  satire  on  official  red  tape ;  Breath  o'  Dawn,  in 
which  the  engaging  Killorin  reappears;  Peter  Stops 
Ashore,  with  its  simple  love  interest  and  the  luring 
call  of  the  sea;  the  delightfully  extravagant  absurdity 
of  Bill  Green's  tale  in  The  Medicine  Ship — all  these  are 
in  Mr.  Connolly's  lighter  vein.  Not  one  reaches  the 
level  of  the  best  in  the  other  collections;  not  one  fails 
to  satisfy  a  reader  seeking  diversion  and  entertainment. 

Mr.  Connolly's  most  recent  book  Hiker  Joy  (1920) 
is  likewise  in  light  vein.  It  consists  of  a  series  of 
sketches  retailing  the  marvelous  adventures  of  Hiker 
Joy,  a  street  urchin  with  the  charm  and  shrewdness 
of  Richard  Harding  Davis's  Gallegher,  and  the  in 
imitable  Old  Bill  Green.  While  youthful  readers  may 
find  most  delight  in  following  the  thrilling  experiences 
in  Aboard  the  Horse-Boat,  The  Flying  Sailor  and  The 
North  Sea  Men,  others  will  prefer  the  passages  in 
which  Hiker,  who  tells  it  all,  expounds  his  literary 
theories. 

Reading  Mr.  Connolly's  books  leaves  one  with  the 
conviction  that  he  is  an  author  who  has  certain  ideas 
of  his  own  concerning  the  technique  of  story-writing. 
Some  of  his  stories  are  told  so  impersonally  that  they 


JAMES  BRENDAN  CONNOLLY  99 

appear  to  have  no  point  of  view — they  are  merely 
yarns  spun  for  the  entertainment  of  a  group  of 
listeners.  The  story  itself  is  everything — the  spirited 
action,  the  adventure,  the  humor  hold  the  reader's  in 
terest  and  there  is  no  thought  of  the  author.  In  the 
sketch  Dan  Magee:  White  Hope  Mr.  Connolly  ex 
presses  his  belief  that  the  story,  not  the  author  or  his 
views  of  life,  is  the  prime  consideration:  "And  the 
first  thing  in  telling  a  story  is  to  tell  it,  not  to  stop  to 
preach  a  sermon."  And  again  in  Hiker  Joy  we  find 
"The  Yastor  Libry  is  crowded  with  four  'n'  five  'n* 
six-hundred-page  best  sellers  that  coulda  been  told  in 
twenty  pages  and  the  tired  reader  not  miss  anything. 
From  the  Yarabian  Nights  to  old  Homer  and  all  the 
way  down  the  good  story-tellers  never  loafed  too  much 
once  they  started  to  tell  a  story,  so  lay  off  too  much 
talky-talky  an'  don't  try  to  make  yuhself  out  too  wise 
a  guy  in  tellin'  your  story."  Undoubtedly  in  his  own 
work  Mr.  Connolly  has  done  just  this.  In  differentiat 
ing  between  the  novel  and  the  story  in  Hiker  Joy  he 
definitely  formulates  his  theory :  "  'A  novel  is  mostly 
talky-talky  and  a  story's  mostly  doing,  isn't  it  ?' 

"  'But  how  does  a  man  go  about  writing  a  story  ?'  I 
ask  him. 

'  'I  don't  know's  he  goes  about  it  at  all/  he  says. 
'Aren't  stories  all  the  time  bouncing  up  in  front  of 
you?'" 

One  feels  that  Mr.  Connolly  has  put  these  theories 
into  practice;  certainly  his  stories  are  "mostly  doing", 


ioo        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

and  the  indirectness  of  their  telling  often  suggests  a 
fine  disregard  for  the  mechanics  of  plot  construction. 
Frequently  we  find  a  story  within  a  story ;  unlike  Kip 
ling  Mr.  Connolly  does  not  break  off  with  "but  that's 
another  story"  when  a  second  tale  injects  itself  into 
his  plot. 

The  debatable  question  of  style  is  also  disposed  of 
characteristically  by  Old  Bill  Green.  "  'What's  that 
style  stuff?'  I  says. 

"  The  litry  umpires  've  written  many  books  on  what 
style  is  but  no  two  of  'em  're  yet  agreed  on  what  it  is/ 
says  Bill.  'But  if  yuh  force  me  I'd  say  a  n'author's 
style  is  his  way  of  putting  his  story  over  an'  if  he's 
got  any  way  a  tall  of  his  own  it's  maybe  better  for  him 
to  use  that  way  than  copy  somebody  else's  that  don't 
come  nachral  to  him.  You  write  like  you  talk  an' 
sometimes  your  talk  is  fierce  but  it's  your  own  way  an* 
don't  let  me  or  any  body  else  kid  you  out  of  it." 

Mr.  Connolly  has  aptly  described  his  own  method  of 
putting  his  story  over.  His  way  is  undoubtedly  his 
own;  no  hint  is  there  anywhere  that  Mr.  Connolly  has 
played  the  sedulous  ape  to  other  writers.  H.  W. 
Boynton,  in  reviewing  one  of  Mr.  Connolly's  books, 
says  of  the  stories,  "They  are  told  with  great  techni 
cal  skill  yet  dare  have  a  character  of  their  own,  instead 
of  following  slavishly  that  O.  Henry  formula  which 
now  threatens  to  stultify  American  short-story 
writing." 

Mr.  Connolly's  style  is  virile,  clear,  and  simple;  his 


JAMES  BRENDAN  CONNOLL^      /°ioi 


prose  rarely  fails  in  vividness,  is  never  inflated,  jand/Ss; 
marked  always  by  vigor  and  robustness  of  thought 
and  emotion.  The  rugged  simplicity  of  his  style  is 
its  distinctive  charm.  His  stories  abound  in  striking 
pictures  painted  in  impressionistic  fashion ;  stormy  seas 
and  peaceful  waters,  rocky  shores,  fishing  boats  and  the 
men  who  man  them  are  graphically  described  with  a 
few  broad  strokes.  In  these  descriptions  the  writer's 
sensitiveness  to  the  appeal  of  color  is  a  dominant 
characteristic. 

With  its  nautical  flavor  Mr.  Connolly's  style  is  vig 
orous,  its  effect  refreshing  as  a  salt-fladen  breeze. 
Only  in  An  Olympic  Victor  does  he  depart  from  the 
rugged  simplicity  characteristic  of  his  sea-stories.  In 
creating  the  Greek  atmosphere  he  has  permitted  the 
"purple  light  of  youth"  and  young  love  to  lend  a 
different  tone — a  tone  languorous,  poetic. 

In  the  conception  and  portrayal  of  character  Mr. 
Connolly  is,  beyond  doubt,  an  artist.  The  sublimity, 
the  pathos,  the  charm,  the  power  of  human  character 
are  brought  out  in  every  tale.  Rather,  these  traits 
reveal  themselves  since  Mr.  Connolly's  method  is  dra 
matic,  not  analytic.  Hugh  Glynn,  Tommy  Clancy, 
Gerald  Donohue,  John  and  Jerome  Lacy,  Cadogan, 
Chick  Mangan  and  the  rest  reveal  their  strength  and 
their  weakness  in  action  and  speech. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  though  women  play  but 
minor  roles  in  these  stories,  the  strongest  motivating 
force  in  the  lives  of  the  men  depicted  is  the  love  of 


102        foiJR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 


f  home1  and  children.  Men  drive  their  ships 
and  recklessly  carry  sail  in  the  endeavor  to  reach  home 
in  time  for  a  birthday  or  Christmas  with  the  little  ones, 
or  to  be  with  a  beloved  wife  in  her  hour  of  need.  Mr. 
Connolly  knows  not  only  the  outward  lives  of  these 
men  but  their  inner  lives  also  ;  he  has  talked  with  them 
aboard  ship  in  the  night-watches  when  men  become 
holy  as  little  children,  revealing  their  souls  simply. 
And  he  knows  good  women  as  thoroughly.  Hugh 
Glynn,  in  The  Trawler  tells  of  this  knowledge  in  words 
not  easily  to  be  forgotten.  "  'Because  she's  too  strong 
a  soul  to  be  spoiled  of  her  life  by  any  one  man; 
because  no  matter  what  man  she  marries,  in  her  heart 
will  be  the  image,  not  of  the  man  her  husband  is,  but 
of  the  man  she'd  wish  him  to  be,  and  in  the  image  of 
that  man  of  her  fancy  will  her  children  be  born. 
Women  moulded  of  God  to  be  the  mothers  of  great 
men  are  fashioned  that  way,  Simon.  They  dream 
great  dreams  for  their  children's  sake  to  come,  and 
their  hearts  go  out  to  the  man  who  helps  to  make 
their  dreams  come  true.  If  I've  learned  anything  of 
good  women  in  life,  Simon,  it  is  that.  And  no  saying, 
I  may  be  wrong  in  that  too,  Simon,  but  so  far  I've 
met  no  man  who  knows  more  of  it  than  I  to  gainsay 
me.'  " 

Mr.  Connolly  has  presented  in  his  stories  no  erotic 
emotions,  no  hectic,  morbid  persons;  his  men  and 
women  are  normal,  well-balanced  human  beings.  His 
is  a  healthy  art  and  he  has  written  of  the  action  in 


JAMES  BRENDAN  CONNOLLY         103 

which  healthy  life  issues.    The  decadent  strain  which 
marks  some  of  the  fiction  of  our  day  is  noticeably 
absent  from  his  work.    His  appeal  is  tb  the  best  that 
is  in  us;  like  the  sea  of  which  he  writes  Mr.  Connolly's 
stories  are  big,  wholesome,  clean.     From  the  best  of 
his  work  we  carry  away  a   feeling  of   respect  and 
admiration  for  men  who  lead  hard  lives  cheerfully, 
men  who  brave  danger  and  death  without  thought  of 
complaint   for  the  sake  of  the  eternal  verities.     In 
every  story  Mr.  Connolly  has  pictured  life  effectively, 
if  sometimes  sketchily,  and  in  every  story  there  is  the 
stamp  of  individuality,  the  individuality  born  of  ^ the 
writer's  passion  for  the  sea.    Like  that  early  American 
master  of  the  sea  tale,  James  Fenimore  Cooper,  Mr. 
Connolly  handles  action  supremely  well,  but  unlike 
Cooper's  extravagant  fabrications  of  salt  water  adven 
ture  his  stories  are  almost  invariably  direct  and  con 
vincing.     It  is  safe  to  say  that  just  as  Mary  Wilkins 
Freeman,  Alice  Brown,  and  Sarah  Orne  Jewett  have 
spoken  for  humble  life  in  New  England  villages,  so 
James  Brendan  Connolly  has  found  in  the  lives  of 
New  England  deep  sea  fishermen  an  inspiration  that 
has  permanently  enriched  the  American  short  story. 
Mr.  Connolly's  short  stories : 

^ 
Out  of  Gloucester,  1902. 

The  Deep  Sea's  Toll,  1905. 
The  Crested  Seas,  1907. 
An  Olympic  Victor,  1908. 


IQ4        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Open  Water,  1910. 
Wide  Courses,  1911. 
Sonnie-Boy's  People,  1913- 
The  Trawler,   1914. 
Head  Winds,  1916. 
Running  Free,  1917. 
Hiker  Joy,  1920. 

E.  K.  T. 


CHAPTER  VII 

RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS 

RICHARD   HARDING   DAVIS  was  born  in 
Philadelphia,  April  18,  1864.  He  died  at  Cross 
roads    Farm,    near    Mt.    Kisco,    New    York, 
within  seven  days  of  his  fifty-second  birthday,  April 

II,  1916. 

Successful  in  journalism  and  in  fiction,  known  best 
for  his  Soldiers  of  Fortune,  The  Princess  Aline,  Ran- 
son's  Folly  and  Captain  Maeklin,  he  has  yet  to  receive 
just  praise  for  his  work  in  the  short  story.     This 
fact  is  the  more  remarkable  if  one  considers  his  many 
volumes  of  these  briefer  forms,  their  entertaining  qual 
ity,  their  sound  technic  and  their  romantic  reflection 
of 'life.     More,  perhaps,  than  the  accomplishment  of 
any  other  author  in  this  collection,  they  represent  the 
production  of  one  who  learned  through  journalism 
how  to  use  his  tools  in  fiction  and  of  one  whose  early 
determination  to  write  never  wavered.     At  the  time 
of  his  death,  R.  H.  D.  had  signed  a  contract  to  write 
six  stories  at  a  figure  which,  according  to  his  brother, 
Charles  Belmont  Davis,   or  so   far  as  this  brother 
knew,  was  the  highest  ever  offered  an  American  au- 

105 


io6        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

thor.  Perhaps  the  tradition  that  Mr.  Davis  is  novelist 
rather  than  short  story  writer  depends  somewhat  upon 
the  length  of  his  narratives.  In  the  Fog,  for  example, 
really  a  "long-short"  of  not  more  than  35,000  words 
is  commonly  thought  of  as  a  novel.  Similar  state 
ments  might  be  made  of  Ranson's  Folly.  The  King's 
Jackal,  Vera,  the  Medium,  The  Scarlet  Car,  and  other 
works  on  the  border  line  between  short  story  and 
novelette.  I 

It  is  not  easy  to  pigeon-hole  Mr.  Davis.  Arthur 
Bartlett  Maurice  wrote  some  years  ago  (Bookman, 
April,  1906)  that  his  one  dominant  note  is  the  social 
note,  possibly  the  superficially  social  note.  And  he 
was  a  sort  of  matinee  hero  among  fictionists.  Hand 
some,  debonair,  a  touch  of  the  supercilious  in  his 
manner,  of  affectation  in  his  speech,  and  of  nice  re 
gard  for  his  dress,  he  was  a  perfect  gentleman  in  the 
social  sense.  Small  wonder  that  he  was  the  admira 
tion  and  the  despair  of  gilded  youth.  But  he  was 
much  more  than  the  conventional  gentleman,  one  de 
voted  to  a  fixed  code  of  personal  conduct.  He  was 
the  essential  noble  man  who  hates  wrong  and  injustice, 
who  does  his  individual  best  to  uphold  standards  of 
truth  and  honor.  And  this  real  manhood  underlies 
the  smooth  savoir  faire  of  his  art.  His  brother,  in 
Adventures  and  Letters  of  Richard  Harding  Davis — 
a  work  no  less  authoritative  than  entertaining — says 
that  even  in  the  days  of  his  schooling  at  the  Episcopal 
Academy,  when  his  reports  filled  the  house  with  gloom 


RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS  107 

and  ever-increasing  fears  as  to  the  possibilities  of  his 
future,  he  stood  morally  so  very  high.  To  do  an 
unworthy  act  was  quite  beyond  his  understanding. 
According  to  this  brother,  to  others  who  knew  him 
well  and  to  those  who  knew  him  through  his  literary 
expression,  R.  H.  D.  lived  a  life  of  a  chevalier  without 
reproach. 

His  father's  greatest  pride  in  him  was  the  recog 
nition  that  something  of  the  divine  element  had  been 
given  him,  that  his  voice  always  rang  out  sweet  and 
pure,  and  that  he  taught  humanity.  Yet  by  no  means 
must  it  be  forgotten  that  he  was  a  red-blood  writer. 

The  changing  world  of  his  last  years  set  its  mark 
upon  him;  but  the  camera  shows  that  his  beauty  of 
face  remained,  even  though  his  expression  had  deep 
ened  to  a  warrior  sternness.  His  friend,  Gouverneur 
Morris,  wrote  that  at  fifty  he  might  have  posed  to 
some  Praxiteles  and,  copied  in  marble,  gone  down  the 
ages  as  a  "statue  of  a  young  athlete." 

He  numbered  among  his  friends  and  acquaintances 
at  various  times  Ethel  Barrymore,  Augustus  Thomas, 
Joseph  Jefferson,  John  Drew,  E.  H.  Sothern,  Frances 
Hodgson  Burnett,  Horace  Howard  Furness,  Arthur 
Brisbane,  The  Clevelands,  The  Gilders,  Charles  Dana 
Gibson,  Maude  Adams,  Gouverneur  Morris,  Somers 
Somerset,  Lloyd  C.  Griscom,  Frederic  Remington, 
Stephen  Crane,  Anthony  Hope,  Harold  Frederic,  John 
Fox,  Jr.,  Sir  James  Barrie,  Henry  Irving,  Ellen  Terry, 
Theodore  Roosevelt — but  the  list  grows  over-long  be- 


io8        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

fore  it  is  nearly  complete.  Accept  Mr.  Dunne's  state 
ment  that  he  probably  knew  "more  waiters,  generals, 
actors  and  princes"  than  any  man  who  ever  lived. 

His  experience  as  reporter  and  the  list  of  his  in 
ternational  acquaintances  explain  in  part  the  stories 
of  Mr.  Davis.  His  stage  of  action  may  be  New  York 
— city  or  suburb — London,  Cairo,  Valencia,  Tangier, 
Cuba,  Monte  Carlo,  or  an  ocean  vessel.  Ships  figure 
with  remarkable  frequency:  The  Amateur,  The  Spy, 
Whe  Consul,  The  Fever  Ship  at  once  come  to  mind. 
He  wrote  about  Van  Bibber,  society  man;  but  also 
about  Rags  Raegen  and  Hefty  Burke  of  the  East 
Side.  He  wrote  one  of  the  best  dog  stories  in  The 
Bar  Sinister,  two  of  the  best  newspaper  stories  in  Gal- 
legher  and  A  Derelict;  many  first-rate  stories  for  boys 
— The  Reporter  Who  Made  Himself  King,  The  Great 
Tri-Club  Tennis  Tournament,  and  The  Boy  Scout,  for 
instance;  the  best  story  about  a  consul  yet  written 
(  The  Consul)  ;  some  capital  love  stories — A  Charmed 
Life  and  The  Red  Cross  Girl,  for  example ;  one  of  the 
best  spy  stories  in  Somewhere  in  France.  He  touched 
the  psychic  in  Vera,  the  Medium,  The  Messengers  and 
elsewhere;  he  produced  a  new  reaction  over  hidden 
spoils  in  My  Buried  Treasure,  and  a  wild  extrava 
ganza  thrill  from  dreams  in  The  Man  Who  Could  Not 
Lose. 

Nor  is  his  type  of  conflict  less  varied.  The  struggle 
of  Gallegher's  wits  precedes  his  race  against  time; 
A  Leander  of  the  East  River  tests  his  endurance  in 


RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS  109 

swimming;  Austin  Ford,  of  The  Amateur  (detective 
tale  of  joyous  departure  from  formula),  tries  to  fol 
low  up  and  bring  home  a  criminal;  "Rags,  My  Dis 
reputable  Friend,"  debates  between  his  own  life  and 
that  of  the  baby;  the  hero  of  A  Walk  up  the  Avenue 
battles  between  meanness  and  manhood. 

Constant  in  all  his  stories  is  a  liveliness  or  buoy 
ancy  of  tone,  and  inseparably  woven  throughout  all 
a  thread  of  humor.  This  humor  runs  the  circuit  of 
cynicism,  satire,  irony,  and  mere  fun-making;  it  lies 
in  character  and  grows  out  of  character,  bringing 
about  humor  of  situation  rather  than  emerging  from 
it.  It  flashes  in  an  apparent  chance  clause,  as  in 
this  sentence  from  Her  First  Appearance:  "Every 
member  of  the  Lester  Comic  Opera  Company — down 
to  the  wardrobe  woman's  son,  who  would  have  had 
to  work  if  his  mother  lost  her  place,  was  sick  with 
anxiety."  And  it  tosses  the  reader  like  a  cork  on  its 
uproarious  flood  in  The  Man  Who  Could  Not  Lose. 

His  freshness  and  buoyancy  are  explained  by  his 
wide  travels.  He  needed  change  to  stimulate  his  crea 
tive  powers,  and  he  wrote  directly  out  of  his  experi 
ence. 

In  his  early  years,  Richard  Harding  Davis  owed 
much  to  his  mother,  and  so  long  as  she  lived — until 
1910,  when  he  was  away  from  her  he  wrote  her 
a  daily  letter.  "That  was  the  only  habit  he  had," 
wrote  Gouverneur  Morris  shortly  after  his  death.  "He 


no        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

was  a  slave  to  it."  Rebecca  Harding  Davis,  in  The 
Iron  Mills  and  other  works,  did  as  much  for  her  time 
as  any  woman  had  done  for  her  generation,  as  R.  H.  D. 
himself  wrote  her  on  her  birthday  in  1901.  From 
her  he  received  the  instinct  and  the  desire  to  write; 
from  her  and  his  father,  the  sense  of  logical  and 
ethical  values  which  characterizes  his  work  and  his 
career. 

In  1880,  "Dick"  Davis  left  the  Episcopal  Academy 
and  went  to  Swarthmore  College,  where,  no  more  suc 
cessful  than  he  had  been  at  the  first  school,  he  re 
mained  only  one  year.  In  fact,  he  seems  never  to 
have  distinguished  himself  in  the  academic  ranks,  and 
so  drew  upon  himself  the  criticism  that  he  must  have 
acquired  ignorance  since  no  one  could  possibly  have 
been  born  with  quite  so  large  a  stock  of  it.  In  1881, 
he  went  to  live  with  an  Uncle,  a  Professor  at  Lehigh, 
and  continued  his  studies  at  a  preparatory  school.  In 
February,  1882,  he  saw  his  first  skit  in  print;  in  1884 
he  published — through  the  financial  aid  of  his  family 
— his  first  book. 

In  1885  he  left  Lehigh  for  Johns  Hopkins,  where 
he  took  a  special  course  in  subjects  that  would  best 
fit  him  for  his  chosen  profession.  Desirous  of  steady 
newspaper  work,  he  left  Hopkins  in  the  spring  of  1886, 
ready  for  the  first  journalistic  position  he  could  find. 
It  chanced,  however,  that  he  first  went  to  Cuba,  with 
the  President  of  the  Bethlehem  Steel  Company,  and 
there  secured  material  which  came  to  light  ten  years 


RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS  in 

later  in  Soldiers  of  Fortune.  On  his  return,  he 
worked  a  short  time  on  The  Record,  but  left  it  in  three 
months.  The  editor  did  not  like  him,  he  wrote  his 
mother,  because  he  wore  gloves  on  cold  days.  On 
The  Press,  to  which  he  advanced  after  his  first  ex 
perience,  he  remained  for  three  years.  His  ability  was 
first  tested  by  the  Johnstown  flood  disaster  and  re 
vealed  in  the  stories  he  sent  his  paper  from  the  Cone- 
maugh  Valley. 

In  1888,  Richard  Harding  Davis,  now  twenty-four 
years  of  age,  was  a  national  figure.  He  was  star 
reporter  on  The  Press,  and  was  acquiring  fame  as 
interviewer  and  news  gatherer.  Tricks  of  the  journal 
ist's  trade  he  drops  here  and  there  in  his  stories, 
whether  in  the  first  two  or  three  pages  of  one  so  early 
as  The  Reporter  Who  Made  Himself  King,  or  in 
one  so  recent  as  The  Red  Cross  Girl:  "Reporters 
become  star  reporters  because  they  observe  things  that 
other  people  miss  and  because  they  do  not  let  it  ap 
pear  that  they  have  observed  them.  When  the  great 
man  who  is  being  interviewed  blurts  out  that  which  is 
indiscreet  but  most  important,  the  cub  reporter  says: 
That's  most  interesting,  sir.  I'll  make  a  note  of  that.' 
And  so  warns  the  great  man  into  silence.  But  the 
star  reporter  receives  the  indiscreet  utterance  as  though 
it  bored  him;  and  the  great  man  does  not  know  he 
has  blundered  until  he  reads  of  it  the  next  morning 
under  screaming  headlines." 

He  was  not  only  writing  fiction,  but  was  selling  it, 


ii2        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

as  checks  for  various  sums,  as  high  as  one  for  $50  from 
St.  Nicholas,  indicate.  If  he  owes  to  the  swift  strokes 
of  the  reporter  his  spontaneity  and  enthusiasm,  he 
owes  to  his  own  pains  the  sharp  lines  of  the  etcher 
which  fix  his  writing  into  whatever  it  will  have  of 
permanence.  It  is  as  though  in  his  work  he  took 
wholly  to  heart  and  practice  the  advice  he  received 
in  a  letter  from  Robert  Louis  Stevenson :  " — the  cheap 
finish  and  ready  made  methods  to  which  journalism 
leads  you  must  try  to  counteract  in  private  writing 
with  the  most  considerate  slowness  and  on  the  most 
ambitious  models."  Obviously,  from  his  stories  he 
learned  much  about  writing  from  both  Stevenson  and 
Kipling. 

In  1889  R.  H.  D.  accompanied  a  team  of  cricketers 
from  Philadelphia  to  Ireland  and  England  and  re 
ported  the  matches  for  the  Philadelphia  Telegraph.  It 
was  on  this  trip  to  London  that  he  first  met  Charles 
Dana  Gibson,  afterwards  associated  with  him  as  illus 
trator.  "Dick  was  twenty-four  years  old  when  he 
•came  into  the  smoking-room  of  the  Victoria  Hotel 
after  midnight  one  July  night — he  was  dressed  as  a 
Thames  boatman  ...  He  had  adventure  written  all 
over  him  .  .  .  His  life  was  filled  with  just  the  sort 
of  adventure  he  liked  best."  So  Mr.  Gibson  recalled 
at  the  time  of  Mr.  Davis's  death. 

On  his  return  he  visited  New  York  in  the  hope  of 
finding  a  berth  on  a  newspaper,  but  tried  several  offices 
without  success.  There  are  several  legends  as  to  what 


RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS  113 

happened  ultimately :  one  is  to  the  effect  that  he  put 
himself  into  the  clutches  of  a  green-goods  man,  trapped 
him  with  marked  money,  and  went  to  The  Evening 
Sun  with  the  story.  But  his  brother's  account  is  as 
follows:  On  his  way  to  the  station  after  his  unsuc 
cessful  search,  he  sat  down  on  a  park  bench.  Pres 
ently  along  came  Arthur  Brisbane,  whom  young  Davis 
had  lately  met  in  London.  Now  the  editor  of  the 
Sun,  he  offered  Davis  a  position  on  the  staff. 

Coincidence  handled  in  many  fashions  is  one  of  the 
striking  peculiarities  of  R.  H.  D.'s  work.  Such  ex 
periences  as  the  one  just  recorded  probably  lay  at  the 
bottom  of  his  repeated  use  of  apparent  accident — an 
other  name  for  Fate.  In  A  Charmed  Life,  he  develops 
a  series  of  coincidences  which  compel  the  reader's  be 
lief  through  his  love  charm  motif;  in  The  God  of 
Coincidence  he  tells  such  an  amazing  instance  of  co 
incidence  that  he  must  induce  belief  through  the  title 
— which  otherwise  might  have  been  The  Man  in  the 
Green  Hat — and  through  a  number  of  easily  accept 
able  examples,  given  at  the  outset.  That  he  knew 
how  to  secure  belief  is  proof  of  his  skill.  In  The 
Long  Arm  he  uses  the  coincidence  at  the  climax  and 
gains  credulity  by  a  seriousness  of  manner,  as  though 
he  staked  his  word  on  the  amazing  circumstances  he 
recounts.  The  Long  Arm,  it  may  be  noted  in  passing, 
illustrated  the  Stevenson  influence,  even  to  diction. 
Swanson  reflects:  "If  life  be  an  ill  thing,  I  can  lay 
it  down,"  a  conclusion  reached  by  the  older  writer's 


H4        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Markheim  in  the  story  bearing  his  name.  In  The  Boy 
Scout  a  slight  but  kindly  act  of  the  scout — "Do  a  good 
turn  every  day" — sets  in  motion  a  ripple  whose  widen 
ing  circles  touch  the  shores  of  far-off  lands.  i 

In  New  York,  then,  Dick  Davis  continued  his  work 
in  journalism  and  fiction.  He  reported  news  events, 
and  wrote  articles  and  special  features,  with  emphasis 
on  theatrical  people.  He  loved  the  theater,  "painty 
and  gassy  and  dusty,"  as  he  loved  the  country.  Van 
Bibber,  a  frequenter  of  the  green  room,  is  the  first 
of  many  heroes  belonging  to  the  same  race :  "a  race 
of  kindly,  generous  souled  bounders,  gentlemen  at 
heart,"  Mr.  Maurice  dubs  them.  He  instances  as  an 
example  of  the  "breaks"  of  these  heroes  of  Mr.  Davis 
the  visit  of  Van  Bibber  to  Carruthers  (in  Her  First 
Appearance,  afterwards  dramatized  as  The  Littlest 
Girl).  With  the  child  in  his  arms,  he  reads  that  gen 
tleman,  the  child's  father,  "a  solemn  lesson  on  the 
duties  of  paternity." 

In  1890  R.  H.  D.  became  a  star  of  the  first  mag 
nitude  when  he  burst  forth  in  Scribner's  Magazine, 
with  Gallegher.  The  Other  Woman  and  My  Dis 
reputable  Friend,  Mr.  Raegen,  appeared  shortly  after 
and  with  a  number  of  Van  Bibber  stories  were  pub 
lished  in  1891,  in  a  volume  dedicated  to  "My  Mother." 
Gallegher  must  have  been  a  work  of  long  inception; 
for  his  father  wrote,  in  1888,  "Have  you  done  any 
thing  on  Gallegher?  That  is  by  far  the  best  work 
you  have  done — oh,  by  far  .  .  ."  In  1890,  he  thought 


RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS  115 

A  Walk  up  the  Avenue  superior  to  it ;  but  the  verdict 
of  critics  has  maintained,  rather,  the  superiority  of 
the  newspaper  story.  My  Disreputable  Friend  was 
afterwards  dramatized,  as  a  curtain  raiser,  with  E.  H. 
Sothern  in  the  role  of  Rags. 

Combining  journalism  and  fiction  meant  that  one 
incident  frequently  served  for  both.  About  one  of 
the  tales  written  in  these  early  years,  he  wrote  his 
mother,  "The  ladies  in  the  Tombs  were  the  Shippens 
...  and  Mamie  Blake  is  a  real  girl,  and  the  story  is 
true  from  start  to  finish."  Five  or  six  years  later, 
in  London,  he  and  Ethel  Barrymore  were  lost  one 
evening,  for  the  reason  that  one  is  usually  lost  in 
London.  He  wrote  an  account  of  the  incident  to 
some  one  of  his  family  and  used  his  first-hand  experi 
ence  in  the  story,  In  the  Fog.  And  his  very  last  tale, 
The  Deserter,  reads  like  fiction,  yet  is  at  the  same  time 
a  matter  of  fact. 

Yet,  to  revert  to  the  year  1890,  he  was  cautioning 
his  father  not  to  believe  that  "a  man  must  have  an 
intimate  acquaintance  with  whatever  he  writes  of  in 
timately."  And  he  cites  another  story  of  the  same 
era,  Mr.  Trovers'  First  Hunt,  as  proof.  A  lot  of 
people,  he  said,  would  not  believe  he  had  written^  it, 
because  they  knew  he  did  not  hunt.  No  contrasting 
examples  could  better  show  the  writer's  twofold  abil 
ity—an  ability  demanded  by  fiction,  always :  that  of 
making  a  fact  in  life  appear  a  fact  in  fiction  and  that 
of  making  a  fiction  appear  a  fact. 


n6        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

In  these  years  he  learned  to  keep  to  his  ideals:  he 
rejected  numerous  offers  that  promised  momentarily 
greater  money.  He  asked  and  received  criticism  on 
his  stories,  frequently  from  his  father  and  mother, 
whose  guidance  he  trusted.  "Do  only  your  best  work 
if  you  starve  doing  it,"  they  both  enjoined  him.  His 
father  wrote  him  in  1890,  "It  is  good  work,  with 
brain,  bone,  nerve,  muscle  in  it.  It  is  human,  with 
healthy  pulse  and  heartsome  glow  in  it." 

In  1890  Mr.  Davis  left  the  Sun  to  become  managing 
Editor  of  Harper's  Weekly,  under  the  editorship  of 
George  William  Curtis.  This  step  advanced  him  in 
fame  and  gave  opportunity  for  wider  recognition 
through  his  arrangement  to  edit  the  Weekly  part  of 
every  year  and  to  travel  the  remainder. 

His  Stories  for  Buys,  copyright  by  Charles  Scrib- 
ner*s  Sons,  1891,  reveal  his  continued  interest  in  youth 
and  its  adventures,  first  manifested  in  Gallegher. 

In  1892,  January,  he  took  a  trip  which  resulted  in 
The  West  from  a  Car  Window.  And  just  here  may 
be  listed  a  number  of  his  factual  works  growing  out 
of  his  reporter's  life  from  this  time  to  the  end  of  his 
life.  Rulers  of  the  Mediterranean  (1894)  ;  Our  Eng 
lish  Cousins  (1894);  About  Paris  (1895);  Three, 
Gringos  in  Venezuela  and  Central  America  (1896); 
A  Year  from  a  Reporter's  Note  Book  (1897),  includ 
ing  Cuba  in  War  Time,  The  Millennial  Celebration  at 
Budar-Pest,  With  the  Greek  Soldiers,  and  other  ar 
ticles;  With  Both  Armies  in  South  Africa  (1900); 


RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS  117 

Notes  of  a  War  Correspondent  (1910)  ;  With  the  Al 
lies  (1914) ;  With  the  Allies  in  Salonika  (1916).  All 
these  reveal  his  descriptive  power,  his  ability  to  nar 
rate  facts  and  to  interpret  the  life  he  observed,  as  hi§ 
fictive  stories,  paralleling  the  settings  and  characters 
of  his  actual  experiences,  reveal  his  skill  in  the  con 
struction  of  artistic  narrative. 

In  1892  he  visited  London  (May  to  August)  and 
fraternized  at  Oxford  with  the  undergraduates.  In 
August  he  returned,  visited  his  father's  family  at  Ma 
rion  on  Cape  Cod,  and  early  in  the  autumn  was  ful 
filling  the  editorial  half  of  his  contract.  He  reported 
certain  events  in  connection  with  the  World's  Fair  at 
Chicago,  worked  at  his  desk  in  Franklin  Square,  and 
in  February  (1893)  was  off  for  a  tour  of  the  Mediter 
ranean.  On  April  16,  he  wrote:  "I  have  been  in 
Spain,  France,  Italy,  Germany,  Austria,  Hungary,  Ser 
bia,  Bulgaria,  Turkey,  Greece,  Egypt,  and  Morocco.  I 
have  sat  on  the  rock  of  Gibraltar  sailed  on  the  Nile 
and  the  Suez  Canal  and  crossed  through  the  Darda 
nelles,  over  the  Balkans,  the  Steppes  of  Hungary  and 
the  Danube  and  the  Rhine."  After  Paris  and  London, 
he  returned  to  Marion,  where  he  finished  his  novel, 
Soldiers  of  Fortune.  (He  sold  it,  1895,  to  Scrib- 
ner's  Sons  for  $5,000.  It  was  published  in  volume 
form,  1897,  with  a  dedication  to  Charles  Dana  and 
Irene  Gibson.)  We  hear  of  him  in  the  fall,  at  his 
desk  and  in  the  social  life  of  the  city.  In  February, 
1894,  he  wrote  the  novel,  The  Princess  Aline,  the  hero- 


ii8        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

ine  of  which  was  the  future  ill-starred  Empress  of 
Russia.  This  same  year  he  was  again  in  London  on 
a  social  visit,  and  in  Paris,  whither  he  hastened  at 
the  news  of  President  Carnot's  assassination.  Janu 
ary,  1895,  ne  set  out  for  South  and  Central  America 
(The  Three  Gringos  chiefly  resulting  from  this  trip). 
By  April  he  was  back  working  on  his  articles  and 
stories. 

Even  so  congested  a  summary  must  make  clear  that 
Mr.  Davis's  life  from  1892  to  1895  was  suggestive 
of  the  old  saw,  "Off  again,  on  again,  gone  again." 
But  the  years  1896  and  1897  were  climactic  in  activity. 
"In  the  space  of  twelve  months,"  his  brother  Charles 
Belmont  has  summed  up,  "he  reported  the  Coronation 
at  Moscow,  the  Millennial  Celebration,  The  Spanish- 
Cuban  War,  the  McKinley  Inauguration,  the  Greek- 
Turkish  War  and  the  Queen's  Jubilee."  At  the  same 
time,  or  in  this  time,  he  was  writing  Captain  Macklin, 
a  novel  in  the  earlier  part  of  which  he  displayed,  ac 
cording  to  friendly  critics,  a  power  truly  Thackerayan. 
Also,  in  1896,  appeared  Cinderella  and  Other  Stories, 
containing  the  popular  favorites,  The  Editor's  Story, 
and  The  Reporter  Who  Made  Himself  King. 

April,  1897,  he  spent  with  his  brother,  for  the  most 
part,  in  Florence,  Italy.  In  the  late  summer  he  re 
turned  to  Cape  Cod,  but  was  back  in  London  in  De 
cember.  There  he  remained  until  war  between  the 
United  States  and  Spain  seemed  inevitable,  when  he 
came  back  to  New  York  and  started  to  Key  West. 


RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS  "9 

During  that  war  he  acted  as  correspondent  for  the 
London  Times,  for  the  New  York  Herald  and  for 
Scribner's  Magazine.  The  war  over,  he  stopped  for 
a  brief  time  in  New  York  and  a  visit  to  Marion.  That 
was  in  1898,  the  year  of  the  publication  of  The  King's 
Jackal.  Early  in  1899  he  was  in  London. 

Now  follows  one  of  the  most  spectacular  and  ro 
mantic  episodes  connected  with  Mr.  Davis's  romantic 
life,  one  that  became  famous  over  all  the  world.  In 
the  spring  of  1899  he  proposed  by  cable  to  Miss  Cecil 
Clark,  of  Chicago.  On  her  acceptance  of  his  heart 
and  hand,  Mr.  Davis  found  himself  unable  to  leave 
London  and  so  sent  the  engagement  ring  by  William 
Thomas  Jaggers,  No.  757  in  the  London  District  Mes 
senger  Service.  Young  Jaggers  made  the  trip  be 
tween  March  1 1  and  March  29,  obtained  receipts  for 
letters  sent  by  Mr.  Davis,  and  was  back  in  London 
a  week  before  the  time  set  as  that  of  his  expected 

return. 

On  May  4,  1899,  Mr.  Davis  and  Miss  Clark  were 
married,  at  Marion.  After  some  weeks  at  home,  they 
spent  the  summer  in  London  and  at  Aix-les-Bains. 
Early  in  1900  they  set  out  for  the  Boer  War.  Cape 
Town,  Ladysmith,  and  Pretoria  figure  in  Mr.  Davis's 
letters  and  articles  written  at  this  time.  When  they 
returned  to  America  in  the  fall  of  1900  they  lived  in 
East  58th  Street,  but  in  the  spring  they  went  to  the 
summer  home  on  Cape  Cod,  where  they  remained  for 
a  year,  May,  1901,  to  the  spring  of  1902.  They  left 


120        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

then  for  Madrid,  where  Mr.  Davis  reported  the  Coro 
nation  ceremonies  consequent  upon  Alfonso's  ascend 
ing  the  throne.  They  continued  to  London,  to  be  pres 
ent  at  Edward's  coronation,  but  learned,  while  they 
were  visiting  the  Kiplings,  that  it  had  been  postponed 
on  account  of  the  king's  illness. 

Meantime,  of  Mr.  Davis's  fictive  works,  had  ap 
peared  The  Lion  and  the  Unicorn  (copyright,  1899),. 
In  the  Fog  (1901),  and  Ransoris  Folly  (1902).  The 
last  named  contains,  in  addition  to  the  title  story,  La 
Lettre  d' Amour,  A  Derelict  and  The  Bar  Sinister  with 
In  the  Fog  repeated.  It  is  the  best  collection  up  to 
the  time  of  its  publication. 

Once  more,  after  a  sojourn  at  Marion  and  New 
York  City,  during  which  time  he  bought  Crossroads 
Farm,  the  Davis's  sailed  away,  this  time  for  the  Ori 
ent.  The  Russo-Japanese  War  was  on.  On  his  ar- 
rival  in  Japan,  R.  H.  D.  found,  as  Jack  London  before 
him  had  found,  that  he  could  not  get  within  two  or 
three  miles  of  the  firing  line.  He  met  London,  by 
the  way,  of  whom  he  records  "a  tremendous  impres 
sion  of  vitality  and  power."  John  Fox,  Jr.,  was  there, 
too;  and  he  and  Davis,  led  by  promises  of  seeing  some 
fighting,  wasted  six  months  in  a  vain  endeavor  to  get 
near  the  scene  of  action.  He  came  back,  hastening 
from  Vancouver  to  Philadelphia  because  of  his  father's 
fatal  illness. 

In  July,  1905,  Mr.  Davis  and  his  wife  moved  to 
Crossroads.  Thereafter  he  resided  for  the  most  part 


RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS  121 

at  this  country  home  in  the  warmer  months;  but  in 
the  colder  seasons  he  turned  to  the  tropics.  Even 
so  early  as  the  Cuban  War  he  suffered  from  neuralgia 
of  the  hip.  "I  saw  him  writhing  on  the  ground  with 
sciatica,  during  that  campaign,  like  a  snake,"  John 
Fox  wrote  of  him,  "but  pulling  his  twisted  figure 
straight  and  his  tortured  face  into  a  smile  if  a  soldier 
or  a  stranger  passed." 

He  published,  1906,  The  Scarlet  Car,  a  novelette 
with  a  Broadway  and  road-to-New  Haven  setting. 

At  the  request  of  Robert  J.  Collier,  R.  H.  D.  went 
to  the  Congo  in  1907  to  investigate  the  situation  there. 
By  May  he  was  again  in  Mount  Kisco.  Shortly  after 
ward,  he  converted  his  drama,  The  Galloper,  into  a 
musical  comedy,  The  Yankee  Tourist,  with  Raymond 
Hitchcock  as  star.  Until  the  fall  of  1908  he  was  in 
New  York,  Mt.  Kisco,  Marion,  and  Cuba,  In  De 
cember  he  and  Mrs.  Davis  were  in  Cheyne  Walk,  Lon 
don,  living  in  Turner's  house,  hard  by  Carlyle's. 
August,  1909,  he  was  back  at  Crossroads,  where  he 
spent  the  greater  part  of  the  following  three  years. 

Personal  unhappiness,  one  might  judge  from  the 
stories  of  Richard  Harding  Davis,  never  assailed  him. 
Nor  did  he  permit  the  sorrows  of  his  own  life  to 
find  expression  in  his  fiction.  But  they  came,  and 
when  they  came,  he  played  "Let's  Pretend"  and  made 
believe  they  were  imaginary.  For  some  years  he  and 
his  wife  had  been  estranged,  so  that  neither  their 
separation  nor  their  divorce  came  as  a  surprise  to  their 


122        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

close  friends.  To  this  domestic  upheaval  in  1910  was 
added  the  grief  of  his  mother's  loss :  Rebecca  Harding 
Davis  died  in  September  of  the  same  year. 

At  this  time  the  friendship  of  the  Gouverneur  Mor 
rises  meant  much  to  him.  He  visited  them  at  Aiken  in 
1910,  dedicated  Once  upon  a  Time  (1910)  to  Gouver 
neur;  and  after  two  journeys  to  London  in  1911 — 
one  to  the  coronation  of  George  and  the  other  to  his 
sister,  Nora  Davis  Farrar — he  again  turned  to  Aiken 
in  January,  1912. 

In  June,  1912,  he  reported  the  Republican  Conven 
tion  at  Chicago.  On  July  8  he  married  Miss  Eliza 
beth  Genevieve  McEvoy,  known  better  by  her  stage 
name,  Bessie  McCoy.  His  collection  of  stories,  The 
Red  Cross  Girl  (1912),  is  dedicated  to  her,  as  is  also 
the  following  volume,  The  Lost  Road  (1913). 

In  the  autumn  of  1913  he  and  Augustus  Thomas 
spent  a  month  in  Cuba,  producing  a  film  version  of 
Soldiers  of  Fortune.  It  was  one  of  the  first  big  mo 
tion  picture  productions,  one  in  which  the  government 
war  vessels  participated  by  permission  of  the  United 
States.  His  experience  in  "movie"  circles  undoubt 
edly  influenced  his  subsequent  short-stories;  but  it  is 
to  be  questioned  whether  it  would  have  brought  about, 
ever,  a  conscious  or  unconscious  catering  to  demands 
of  the  screen.  He  wrote  his  story,  leaving  the  picture 
to  take  care  of  itself. 

Late  in  April,  1914,  R.  H.  D.  left  the  Crossroads 


RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS  123 

and  started  for  Vera  Cruz,  to  report  what  seemed  an 
imminent  clash  between  Mexico  and  the  United  States. 
He  went  on  the  first  transport  that  landed  troops ;  and 
again  fell  in  with  Jack  London,  who  was  aboard.  He 
came  back  to  New  York  in  June  and  sailed  on  August 
4,  with  his  wife,  on  the  Lusitania.  Once  on  the  other 
side,  he  started  for  Brussels,  where  he  arrived  in  time 
to  see  the  entry  of  the  German  troops.  His  article 
on  this  subject  is  one  of  his  best  pieces  of  descriptive 
writing,  and  to  those  who  read  his  Tribune  letters 
from  day  to  day  he  brought  home  the  first  full  meaning 
of  the  World  War. 

He  returned,  October,  1914,  to  write  his  first  book 
on  the  great  conflict.  He  and  Mrs.  Davis  spent  the 
winter  in  the  city,  where  January  4,  1915,  his  daughter, 
Hope,  was  born.  In  April  they  went  out  to  Cross 
roads,  as  it  chanced,  a  year  from  the  day  that  was 
to  mark  his  death.  He  took  the  course  in  military 
training  at  Plattsburg,  where  the  sham  battles  must 
have  recalled  earlier  days,  such  as  had  produced  his 
Peace  Maneuvers  (in  Once  upon  a  Time}.  In  the 
same  month  Somewhere  in  France  was  published,  the 
last  of  his  collections. 

By  November  he  was  visiting  the  trenches  outside 
Rheims,  having  returned  to  Europe  in  October.  A 
few  days  later  he  was  in  Athens,  off  for  Salonica. 
November  30  he  wrote  his  brother,  "It  ought  to  be 
a  place  for  great  stories."  And  there  it  was  that 


i24        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

he  found  the  setting  for  his  last  narrative,  The  De 
serter.* 

Mr.  Davis  sailed  for  home,  by  way  of  London,  Feb 
ruary,  1916.  March  21,  1916,  he  fell  ill,  and  on  April 
ii  he  died.  He  was  buried  at  Philadelphia. 

The  amazing  quality  of  Mr.  Davis's  work  lies  in 
one  word — youth.  "He  was  youth  incarnate,"  John 
Fox,  Jr.,  wrote  of  him.  "He  not  only  refused  to 
grow  old  himself,  he  refused  to  write  about  old  age." 
Finley  Peter  Dunne  confirmed  this  statement  in  words 
to  the  same  purport.  And  John  T.  McCutcheon :  "In 
his  writing  he  was  the  interpreter  of  chivalrous,  well- 
bred  youth,  and  his  heroes  were  young,  clean-thinking 
college  men,  heroic  big  game  hunters,  war  corre 
spondents  and  idealized  men  about  town,  who  always 
did  the  noble  thing,  disdaining  the  unworthy  in  act 
or  motive." 

That  Robert  Clay,  in  Soldiers  of  Fortune,  would 
have  needed  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  to  achieve 
the  various  feats  of  diplomacy  and  engineering 
ascribed  to  him  is  an  example  of  his  idealistic  concept 
of  man. 

He  succeeds  best  with  his  men;  for  if  ever  a  writer 
put  himself  into  his  stories,  Richard  Harding  Davis 
did.  Whether  the  reporter  in  Gallegher  or  the  one 
*  In  it  Jimmie  Hare,  McCutcheon,  Bass  and  W.  G.  Shepherd  all 
have  part,  and  to  it  Mr.  Shepherd  wrote  a  moving  sequel,  The 
Scar  Fhat  Tripled. 


RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS         '   125 

who  made  himself  king  or  the  "I"  of  The  Deserter; 
whether  the  hero  of  the  Van  Bibber  stories,  or  young 
Stuart  who  sits  opposite  the  understudy  of  Miss  Dela- 
mar  or  Chesterton  on  his  night  ride  to  the  sea-coast; 
whether  Sam  Ward  of  The  Red  Cross  Girl,  Lowell 
of  The  God  of  Coincidence,  or  Billy  Barlow  of  Billy 
and  the  Big  Stick;  whether  the  husband  in  Playing 
Dead — whether  he  masquerades  convincingly  as  any 
one  of  these,  he  is  none  the  less  Richard  Harding 
Davis.  Not  that  he  is  obtrusively  so  to  the  reader. 
For  the  different  facets,  lights,  settings  and  varied 
action  mean  a  constancy  of  novelty. 

In  his  earlier  efforts  he  did  not  succeed  with  his 
women.  The  critic  was  right  who  said  that  they  give 
the  impression  one  gets  upon  catching  sight  of  a  beau 
tiful  face  in  a  passing  carriage.  But  in  his  later  stories, 
say  beginning  with  those  now  grouped  in  The  Red 
Cross  Girl,  he  is  more  successful.  Even  though  the 
hero  is  still  the  hero,  the  women  are  warm  and  breath 
ing.  Greater  space  would  permit  analysis  of  his  later 
success;  its  explanation  to  be  found  in  his  life.  If 
he  had  lived,  his  daughter  Hope — to  whom  yet  a  baby, 
his  last  book  was  dedicated — would  have  provided  a 
new  stimulus  and  given  a  new  slant  to  his  fiction,  as 
Bessie  McCoy  Davis,  her  mother,  had  done.  One 
may  say  this;  for  of  all  lovely  love  letters  given  the 
world,  the  few  which  the  public  are  privileged  to  read 
are  unsurpassed.  And  it  is  said,  with  truth,  so  far 


126        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

as  the  evidence  reveals,  that  he  wrote  letters  more 
easily  than  he  wrote  any  other  kind  of  composition. 

The  professional  cynic,  cited  by  Mr.  Maurice,  may 
assert  that  the  beginnings  of  Mr.  Davis's  stories  are 
positive  triumphs,  because  a  composite  of  them  would 
run  something  as  follows :  "Miss  Van  Knickerbocker 
was  seriously  annoyed.  The  unexpected  departure  of 
the  butler  was  most  inopportune.  The  second  man 
was  obviously  incompetent;  the  illness  of  the  chef 
and  of  the  coachman  had  already  complicated  her 
household  arrangements,  and  the  affair  of  the  third 
footman  and  the  fifth  and  sixth  chambermaids, 
etc.,  etc." 

But  no  cynic  may  detract  from  the  endings  of  his 
stories.  Better  than  any  other  American  writer  of  his 
generation — barring  questionably  the  surprise  denoue 
ments  of  O.  Henry — he  knew  how  to  hold  interest  to 
the  last  and  to  make  his  close  the  strongest  part  of 
his  narrative.  Read  The  Spy  and  when  you  come 
to  the  final  page  read  it,  if  you  can,  without  tears.  It 
is  one  of  the  few  superb  endings  in  fiction,  a  denoue 
ment  tragically  moving,  yet  satisfying.  Or  take  The 
Consul.  You  will  thrill  to  admiration  and  satisfaction 
that  one  incorruptible  victim  of  politics  received  his 
reward.  Or  exult  over  The  Bar  Sinister,  which  drops 
the  curtain  on  the  Wyndham  Kid  "taking  blue  rib 
bons  away  from  father."  Or  chortle  aloud  in  glee 
over  the  final  hundred  words  of  The  Naked  Man.  The 


RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS  127 

truth  is  that  R.  H.  D.  rarely  failed  in  his  wind-up, 
whether  in  tragedy  or  comedy. 
The  Deserter  closes : 

"'You  can  all  go  to  hell!'  said  Mr.  Hamlin. 

"We  heard  the  door  slam  and  his  hobnailed 
boots  pounding  down  the  stairs.  No  one  spoke. 
Instead,  in  unhappy  silence  we  stood  staring  at 
the  floor.  Where  the  uniform  had  lain  was  a 
pool  of  mud  and  melted  snow  and  the  darker 
stains  of  stale  blood." 

He  meant  to  make  you  joyful  over  Mr.  Hamlin's 
farewell  remark ;  and  sober  over  the  closing  paragraph. 
He  was  a  master  of  contrast  and  sudden,  yet  effective, 
transition. 

His  mastery  of  description  he  achieved  by  hard 
labor.  "He  worked  upon  a  principle  of  elimination/' 
his  friend  Gouverneur  Morris  wrote.  "If  he  wished 
to  describe  an  automobile  turning  in  at  a  gate,  he 
made  first  a  long  and  elaborate  description  from  which 
there  was  omitted  no  detail  which  the  most  observant 
pair  of  eyes  in  Christendom  had  ever  noted  with  re 
spect  to  just  such  a  turning.  Thereupon  he  would 
begin  a  process  of  omitting  one  by  one  those  details 
which  he  had  been  at  such  pains  to  recall;  and  after 
each  omission  he  would  ask  himself:  'Does  the  pic 
ture  remain?'  "  And  so  he  experimented  "until  after 
Herculean  labor  there  remained  for  the  reader  one  of 
those  swiftly  flashed,  ice-clear  pictures  (complete  in 


128        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

every  detail)  with  which  his  tales  and  romances  are 
so  delightfully  and  continuously  adorned."  Thus  it 
was  he  achieved  that  picturesque  effect,  which  as  his 
friend  McCutcheon  said,  "was  photographic  even  to 
the  sounds  and  smells." 

To  his  ultimate  swift  and  vivid  pictures  he  added 
novelty  of  situation  and  a  fine  feeling  for  the  dra 
matic  moment.  Therein  lies  his  success  as  a  writer 
of  brief  fiction. 

Volumes  containing  Mr.  Davis's  short  stories: 

Gdlegher  and  Other  Stories,  1891. 

Stories  for  Boys,  1891. 

Van  Bibber  and  Others,  1892. 

The  Exiles,  1894. 

Cinderella  anj.  Other  Stories,  1896. 

Episodes  in  Van  Bibber's  Life,  1899. 

The  Lion  and  the  Unicorn,  1899. 

In  the  Fog,  1901. 

]Ranso*i's  Folly,  1902. 

The  Bar  Sinister,  1903. 

Once  upon  a  Time,  1910. 

The  Man  Who  Could  Not  Lose,  1911. 

The  Red  Cross  Girl,  1912. 

The  Lost  Road,  1913. 

The  Boy  Scout,  1914. 

Somewhere  in  France f  1915. 

The  Deserter,  1917. 

The  Boy  Scout  and  Other  Stories,  1917. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

MARGARET  DELAND 

IN  one  important  particular  the  work  of  Margaret 
Deland  resembles  that  of  William  Cowper.  As 
the  poet  of  the  eighteenth  century  consciously- 
integrated  religion  and  verse,  so  the  fiction  writer  a 
'hundred  years  later  has  made  it  the  essence  of  her  short 
stories  and  novels.  If  success  be  measured  by  vast 
numbers  of  the  common  folk  who  have  enjoyed  him 
through  several  generations,  success  crowns  the  efforts 
of  the  man  who  wrote  The  Olney  Hymns  and  The 
Task;  if  its  gauge  is  present  popularity,  then  success 
attends  the  author  of  Where  the  Laborers  Are  Few 
and  The  Awakening  of  Helena  Ritchie. 

This  dominant  theme  is  most  powerfully  evident 
in  her  novels.  John  Ward,  Preacher,  with  its  prob 
lems  of  faith  and  doubt  established  the  place  of  Mrs. 
Deland  alongside  the  author  of  Robert  Elsmere.  The 
Awakening,  which  in  the  hands  of  a  less  gifted  writer 
might  have  deliquesced  into  a  mere  tract,  became 
under  her  molding  a  great  religious  drama  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Whether  apprehended  through 
the  printed  page  or  observed  in  the  person  of  Miss 

129 


130        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Margaret  Anglin,  who  acted  the  title  role,  Helena  is 
a  human  being  who  sins  and  struggles  and  repents 
and  finds  peace.  At  no  time  is  she  a  puppet  obviously 
propelled  by  the  didactic  showman  behind  the  scenes. 
The  achievement  of  Mrs.  Deland  is  the  dramatization 
of  theological,  religious  and  moral  problems.  It  has 
been  held  that  no  intensely  thematic  fiction  can  be 
dramatic;  but  there  are  exceptions,  among  which  are 
her  novels  and  stories.  The  former  by  their  greater 
magnitude  and  weight  are  more  impressive;  the  latter 
by  their  concentration,  their  exclusion  of  ancillary 
material,  are  more  poignant. 

Margaret  Wade  Campbell  was  born  in  Allegheny, 
Pennsylvania,  February  23,  1857.  Because  her  par 
ents  died  in  her  infancy,  she  lived  for  fifteen  or  sixteen 
years  with  her  mother's  sister,  also  a  Mrs.  Campbell, 
in  Manchester.  Although  her  childhood  was  happy  in 
events  of  an  everyday  and  practical  nature,  it  found 
the  added  joy  of  illusion  in  ' 'make-believe"  and  entered 
the  land  of  fancy  through  stories  read  and  invented. 
It  is  recorded  by  Donald  McDonald,  in  an  article  pub 
lished  some  years  ago,  that  she  and  her  young  friend 
Betty  set  up  a  hospital  for  bugs  and  beetles,  and  find 
ing  the  patients  loath  to  stay  put,  tacked  them  to  their 
board  couches.  In  spite  of  brickdust  tea  and  tender 
ministrations,  the  mortality  was  considerable.  Mar 
garet's  browsing  about  a  well-stocked  family  library 
of  English  classics  undoubtedly  gave  her  a  relish  for 
good  books.  Her  aunt's  censorship  of  her  fiction 


MARGARET  DELAND  131 

reading  permitted  Robinson  Crusoe:  it  is  the 
"immortal''  work  Dr.  Lavendar  had  read  more  times 
than  he  remembered. 

Situated  near  Allegheny  and  Pittsburgh  ("Mercer," 
in  the  stories),  Manchester  ("Old  Chester")  was  in 
those  days  a  village  of  comfortable  houses,  old  fash 
ioned  gardens  and  green  hills  that  sloped  to  the  Ohio 
River.  In  The  Promises  of  Dorothea,  the  author  says 
it  looked  down  upon  the  outside  world,  kindly  but 
pityingly ;  in  The  Story  of  a  Child  it  lay  folded  in  a 
green  silence  a  hundred  years  behind  the  times.  Every 
house  was  like  the  other :  a  broad  porch  opened  into  a 
wide  hall  bordered  by  square  rooms  in  which  open  fire 
places  were  surmounted  by  tall  wooden  mantel-pieces. 
The  flower  beds  were  surrounded  by  box  hedges;  the 
orchards  were  laid  out  in  straight  lines. 

In  the  works  which  have  come  to  be  synonymous 
with  MFS.  Deland  and  Old  Chester,  she  has  portrayed 
with  large  comprehension  and  loving  detail  the  men 
and  women  who  lived,  or  might  have  lived,  in  Man 
chester.  It  is  immaterial  whether  she  draws  from  life 
or  imagination,  whether  she  creates  composites  or  re 
creates  individuals.  She  has  created  Old  Chester, 
which  will  endure  as  the  reflection  of  a  conservative, 
West  Pennsylvania  town  of  pure  British  inhabitants, 
akin  to  their  New  England  compeers,  and  not  unlike 
the  folk  of  English  provinces.  Old  Chester  can 
scarcely  be  named  without  a  thought  of  Tiverton, 
Our  Village,  or  Cranford.  Refinement  was  charac- 


132        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

teristic  of  its  females,  to  paraphrase  Miss  Ferris,  ancj 
the  protection  of  its  youth  was  a  religion. 

If  the  "we"  of  her  stories  be  proof,  Margaret 
Campbell  received  her  early  education  in  a  school  like 
Miss  Bailey's,  described  in  The  Apotheosis  of  the 
Reverend  Mr.  Spangler,  and  mentioned  many  times 
elsewhere.  "For  accomplishments,  there  was  fine 
sewing  every  Wednesday  afternoon;  and  on  Mondays, 
with  sharply  pointed  pencils,  we  copied  trees  and 
houses  from  neat  little  prints;  also  we  had  lessons 
upon  the  piano-forte,  so  there  was  not  one  of  us, 
who  when  she  left  Miss  Ellen's,  could  not  play  at  least 
three  pieces."  She  went  for  a  time  to  a  boarding 
school  at  Pelham  Priory,  near  New  York,  whence  she 
shortly  set  out  to  Cooper  Union,  in  the  City.  There 
she  took  a  course  in  drawing  and  design,  graduating 
at  the  head  of  her  class,  and  subsequently  winning  in 
a  competitive  examination  the  appointment  of  instruc 
tor  in  design  at  th<e  Girls'  Normal  College  (now 
Hunter  College  of  the  City  of  New  York).  Here  she 
remained  until  1880,  when  she  was  married  to  Lorin 
Deland,  and  went  to  live  in  Boston. 

The  story  of  Mrs.  Deland's  first  ventures  in  litera 
ture  has  become  a  tradition,  and  like  an  old  ballad  is 
found  in  more  than  one  version.  Doubtless  on  inquiry, 
she  would  vouchsafe  the  simple  facts ;  but  it  is  pleasant 
to  read,  here,  that  her  first  verses  \vere  written  on  the 
wrapper  of  a  bulky  package  she  was  carrying  home 
from  the  butcher's ;  there,  that  they  were  jotted  down 


MARGARET  DELAND  133 

in  an  account  book ;  elsewhere,  that  they  were  scrawled 
on  the  brown  paper  she  used  in  her  college  work.  We 
prefer  to  keep  all  the  legends  at  the  cost  of  a  single 
fact.  In  1886,  these  first  verses  and  others  were  col 
lected  under  the  title,  The  Old  Garden,  fit  title  for  the 
initial  accomplishment  of  one  who  has  been,  always, 
surrounded  by  flowers.  In  Good  for  the  Soul,  Mrs. 
Deland  describes  an  ideal  garden:  .  .  .  .  "a  great  two 
hundred  foot  square,  sunk  between  four  green  ter 
races;  it  was  packed  with  all  sorts  of  flowers,  and 
overflowing  with  fragrance ;  all  the  beds  were  bordered 
with  sweet  alyssum  and  mignonette,  and  within  them 
the  flowers  stood,  pressing  their  glowing  faces 
together  in  masses  of  riotous  color —  the  glittering- 
satin  yellow  California  poppies;  the  heavenly  blue  of 
nemophila;  crimson  mallow,  snow-white  shining 
phlox;  sweet  peas  and  carnations,  gilly  flowers  and 
bachelor's  buttons,  and  everywhere  the  golden  sparks 
of  coreopsis;  there  were  blots  of  burning-  scarlet, 
sheets  of  orange  and  lilac  and  dazzling  white." 
Harriet  Prescott  Spofford  once  said  that  Mrs.  Deland's 
home  on  Beacon  Hill  was  all  windows  and  flowers; 
and  according  to  Lucy  Purdy,  a  fig  tree  had  been, 
coaxed  into  bearing  fruit  under  her  roof.  In  1915 
Kathleen  Norris,  who  visited  her  at  Dedham,  recorded 
as  the  most  interesting  detail  a  garden  in  the  midst 
of  which  a  fire-bell,  inverted  in  a  stone  wheel,  held 
the  water  that  was  the  lily-pond.  For  many  summers 


134        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Mrs.  Deland  has  gone  to  her  home  at  Kennebunkport, 
Maine,  and  there  worked  out  of  doors. 

After  the  success  of  John  Ward,  Preacher  (1888) 
Mrs.  Deland  wrote  The  Story  of  a  Child  (1892).  In 
this  novelette  of  35,000  words  she  evinces  that  sym 
pathy  for  and  understanding  of  children  which  later 
softened  The  Awakening  of  Helena  Ritchie  and 
through  small  David  contributed  to  its  popularity. 
Since  the  early  nineties  the  child  has  come  to  be  an 
integral  part  of  fiction  and  the  subject  of  innumerable 
stories;  but  he  had  not  been  exploited  when  Mrs.  De- 
land  wrote  her  book  about  Ellen  Dale.  A  revelatory 
passage  of  her  insight  into  the  mind  operation  of  a 
little  girl  is  that  wherein  Ellen  sits  in  twilight  pre 
occupation,  dreaming.  Suppose  Grandmother's  head 
and  Mrs.  Wright's  head  were  to  roll  off  and  down 
the  steps  beside  her!  She  flees  for  comfort  to  Betsey, 
still  perturbed  by  the  fear  of  a  dead,  dead  world;  but 
she  reflects  that  if  everybody  were  dead  she  could  walk 
into  the  queen's  palace  and  try  on  a  crown.  By  the 
time  she  reaches  Betsey  she  has  no  desire  to  throw 
herself  into  that  friend's  arms. 

This  expression  of  interest  in  child  life  is  not  a 
transitory  "sport" ;  it  is  a  permanent  part  of  the  char 
acteristic  fibre  and  structure  of  her  fiction.  She 
touches,  for  example,  the  pathos  of  lonely  childhood 
in  Theophilus  Bell  (Justice  and  the  Judge,  in  Old 
Chester  Tales)  and  realizes  it  through  the  little  boy's 
cherishing  his  father's  old  pipe — sole  possession  that 


MARGARET  DELAND  135 

connected  him  with  the  days  when  he  had  known  that 
father's  love.  She  presents  a  pleasing  objective  study 
of  childhood  in  Anna  (The  Child's  Mother,  of  Old 
Chester  Tales)  and  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  convinc 
ing  Rachel  King's  affection  for  her. 

Following  The  Story  of  a  Child,  appeared  a  volume 
of  five  tales,  more  or  less  about  Old  Chester,  Mr, 
Tommy  Dove  (1893).  The  fact  that  the  work  is 
long  out  of  print  does  not  debar  the  reader  from  a 
glimpse  of  the  apothecary  hero  of  the  titular  piece; 
for  he  recurs  here  and  there  in  subsequent  stories.  A 
Fourth  Class  Apopintment,  first  published  in  Har 
per's,  January,  1892,  with  a  Penniville,  Pennsylvania, 
setting,  may  be  found  as  of  Purham,  Vermont,  under 
the  new  title  Partners  (1913).  The  characters  are  cer 
tainly  those  of  Western  Pennsylvania;  the  denoue 
ment,  in  its  solution  of  the  problem  to  save  mother  is 
similar  to  that  of  The  Unexpectedness  of  Mr.  Horace 
Shields,  whose  hero  marries  Lucy  that  she  may  have 
a  home,  or  that  of  The  House  of  Rimmon,  wherein 
William  West  similarly  rescues  Lydia  Blair.  The 
Face  on  the  Wall,  which  so  far  as  we  know  has  not 
been  reprinted  since  its  appearance  in  Mr.  Tommy 
Dove,  is  a  sympathetic  study  of  the  artistic  tempera 
ment,  in  its  conflict  between  the  base  and  the  noble,  as 
manifested  in  Paul  Calkins. 

In  The  Wisdom  of  Fools  (1897)  Mrs.  Deland  pre 
sents  problems  social  and  ethical  which,  or  so  she  seems 
to  say,  not  all  the  wisdom  of  fools  can  answer. 


136        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Where  Ignorance  Is  Bliss,  'Tis  Folly  to  Be  Wise,  the 
first  story,  is  typical  of  the  lot,  three  of  which  have 
their  action  in  Western  Pennsylvania.  William  West 
is  to  be  married  to  Amy  Townsend.  He  is  a  good 
man.  But  when  he  confesses  to  her  that  in  the  remote 
past  he  committed  forgery  he  meets  with  a  revulsion 
so  great  as  to  forbid  all  hope  of  marriage.  (Amy 
is  a  blood  relation  of  Hergesheimer's  Hester  Stanes, 
in  The  Dark  Fleece) .  The  story  closes  with  a  discus 
sion  over  his  step:  Was  he  fool  or  saint  for  confess 
ing?  In  his  own  meditation  he  had  decided  that  "if 
his  love  for  Amy  was  deep  enough  and  unselfish 
enough,  he  would  hold  his  tongue" ;  but  he  had,  incon 
sequentially  enough,  failed  to  hold  it.  Oddly,  in  a 
companion  piece,  Good  for  the  Soul  (Old  Chester 
\Tales)  Mrs.  Deland  solves  the  same  problem  from  the 
woman's  point  of  view.  Elizabeth  Day  is,  like 
William  West  of  the  other  story,  good.  But  before 
her  marriage  she  has  sinned.  Her  husband  does  not 
know.  Shall  she  tell  him?  Unable  to  decide  for  her 
self,  she  calls  upon  Dr.  Lavendar.  "I  charge  you 
bear  the  burden  of  silence,"  he  counsels  her,  "because 
you  love  your  husband."  As  before,  the  end  expresses 
doubt  of  the  legitimacy  of  the  advice  for  all  cases. 
But  Elizabeth  bravely  held  her  tongue.  .  .  . 

The  second  story  in  the  volume,  The  House  of 
Rimmon  (Reprinted  in  R.  J.'s  Mother  and  Some 
Other  People,  1908)  forecasts  incidentally  the  litera 
ture  of  labor  problems.  But  its  chief  concern  is  the 


MARGARET  DELAND  137 

soul  struggle  of  Lydia  Blair,  whose  guiding  principle 
of  Duty  is  in  conflict  with  her  brother's  ideals.  She 
solves  her  painful  riddle  by  leaving  her  brother's  house 
and  entering  a  shop.  But  the  author  cannot  consent 
to  leave  her  there  and  allows  William  West  (of  the 

irst  story)  to  burn  his  tokens  of  the  past  and  rescue 

icr  for  his  wife. 

T]ie  Law,  or  the  Gospel  presents  a  young  philan 
thropist,  Sarah  Wharton,  in  the  endeavor  to  save 

\Tellie  Sherman,  weak,  devoid  of  physical  or  mental 
or  moral  health.  Sarah  keeps  the  girl  alive,  and  is 
repaid  by  Nellie's  wreckage  of  two  or  three  souls. 
Sarah  has  no  money  for  further  aid,  and  has  to  reject 
real  opportunity  for  benevolence.  Has  one  a  right 
to  interfere  with  the  laws  of  nature,  to  the  extent 
Sarah  Wharton  interfered?  To  battle  for  the  life 
of  the  degenerate?  Who  knows?  The  story  is  signifi 
cant  in  that  a  second  large  interest  of  Mrs.  Deland 
is  for  unfortunate  women.  Their  redemption  has 
been  one  of  her  solicitudes;  to  them  her  home  has 
been  a  refuge.  The  Child's  Mother  (Old  Chester 
Tales)  portrays  in  Mary  Dean  another  Nellie  Sher 
man,  but  directs  the  action  to  a  more  hopeful 
conclusion. 

Old  Chester  Tales  (1898),  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
the  town  has  already  appeared  as  the  locale  of  pre 
vious  stories,  focuses  Mrs.  Deland's  rays  of  interest 
on  Old  Chester,  which  concentrates  them  and  becomes 
thereby  the  first  burning  glass  of  her  short  fiction, 


138        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Old  Chester  means  Dales,  Wrights,  Lavendars,  the 
Doves  (through  Mrs.  Dove,  who  was  Jane  Temple), 
the  Jay  girls,  the  Barkleys,  the  Kings,  the  two  Miss 
Ferrises,  the  Steeles,  the  John  Smiths —  so  the  author 
asserts  in  the  first  story  of  the  volume.     And  they 
are  the  families  that  reappear  in  Dr.  Lavendar1  s  People 
(1903)  and  Around  Old  Chester  (1915).     A  reader 
comes  to  take  incidental  pleasure  in  recognizing  old 
friends  and  in  reflecting  on  family  history  and  rela 
tions  as  he  pursues  his  way  through  these  and  later 
chronicles.      There   is   Mr.    Ezra   Blakeley,   conveyer 
and  statistician,  hero  of  Miss  Maria   (Old  Chester 
Tales),  minor  character  of  The  Note  (Dr.  Lavendar' s 
People)    and   other  episodes,   who   paradoxically  en 
livens  the  pages  with  his  dead  facts.     There  is  his 
uncompromisingly  plain  spoken  sister-in-law  of  the 
deep    bass    voice,    who    is    particularly    delightful — 
because  so  right — in  the  story  of  the  Reverend  Mr. 
Spangler:  "They  are  all  fools,  in  their  different  way; 
but  one  must  be  kind  to  them."     There  is  William 
King,  who  married  his  wife  Martha  for  her  common- 
sense  and  who,  as  village  doctor,  turns  up  only  not 
quite  so  often  as  the  beloved  rector.     There  is  poor- 
rich  Miss  Lydia  Sampson,  of  The  Grasshopper  and 
the  Ant  (Dr.  Lavendar's  People),  who  is  again  the 
heroine  of  a  story,  An  Old  Chester  Secret,  in  Harper's, 
1920.      Above   all,    there    is    Dr.    Lavendar,    whose 
cohesive,  but  not  ubiquitous,  presence  welds  the  tales. 
Dr.  Lavendar  is  probably  a  composite  character;  he 


MARGARET  DELAND  139 

may  draw  from  the  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks,  whom  Mrs. 
Deland  knew  long  before  she  wrote  the  Lavendar  nar 
ratives  ;  from  her  Uncle,  the  Rev.  Dr.  William  Camp 
bell,  once  President  of  Rutgers  College ;  and  from  Dr. 
Francis  Harrington,  to  whom  Dr.  Lavendar's  People 
is  dedicated. 

A  number  of  her  characters  while  retaining  their 
own  individuality  recall  those  from  earlier  or  contem 
porary  literature.  Lydia  Sampson,  the  seamstress 
who  found  Sunday  so  tedious  that  she  employed  it 
in  embroidering  her  shroud,  is  own  sister  to  Louisa 
Ellis,  Mrs.  Freeman's  New  England  Nun,  who  often 
sewed  a  seam  for  the  pure  pleasure  of  sewing.  Amelia, 
the  stupid  kindly  wife  of  Thomas  Dilworth,  is  reminis 
cent  of  Thackeray's  Amelia  and  Mrs.  Freeman's 
Amelia  Lamkin.  Outside  the  main  figures,  the  char 
acters  "run  to  types" :  inept,  good-natured  men,  such 
as  David  Bailey,  one  of  the  "fools"  in  the  Spangler 
story,  George  Gale  (of  Turn  About,  in  Around  Old 
Chester)  ;  insane  or  subnormal  women,  like  Mrs.  King 
(of  The  Child's  Mother)  and  Annie  (of  At  the  Stuffed 
Animal  House);  the  mean  weakling  exemplified  in 
Tom  Hastings  of  The  Thief  (Around  Old  Chester), 
the  weakling  who  boasts  a  streak  of  good,  vitalized  in 
the  person  of  Algy  Keen  (The  Note,  in  Dr.  Lavendar's 
People)  ;  the  mean  giant,  represented  in  Lewis  Halsey 
(The  Harvest  of  Fear). 

Mrs.  Deland's  skill  in  characterization  is  that  of 
the  biographer.  Her  fictive  people  no  less  than  her 


140        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Cleopatra,  Queen  Elizabeth,  Joan  of  Arc  and  other 
figures  in  Studies  of  Great  Women  (Harper's 
Bazar,  1900)  proclaim  her  the  analyst  of  mankind, 
particularly  of  womankind.  For  in  spite  of  her  great 
est  character,  Dr.  Lavendar,  her  men  are  otherwise 
less  life-like  than  her  women. 

Her  sense  of  humor,  a  possession  which  she  never 
cheapens  by  overuse,  with  which  she  just  leavens  the 
seriousness  of  her  work,  emerges  through  the  pecca 
dilloes  of  her  men  and  women,  or  in  her  own  com 
ments  on  life.  Miss  Mary  Ferris  had  taken  to  her 
bed  thirty  years  ago  and  had  never  risen  ("except  on 
Saturday,  when  the  sheets  are  changed,  my  dear!"). 
Charles  Welwood  might  have  had  a  memoir  written 
about  him  had  he  died  young;  "for  in  those  days  the 
anaemic  child  was  a  great  part  of  spiritual  literature". 
To  Mr.  Ezra  was  attached  the  "awful  interest  of  the 
free-thinker"  because  he  believed  the  world  had  been 
created  not  in  six  days  but  in  six  periods.  Miss  Bailey 
tfid  not  find  it  necessary  to  teach  that  rubbing  a  cat's 
fur  the  wrong  way  would  produce  sparks.  "But  it 
was  very  interesting,  and  as  Mrs.  Barkley  said  if  such 
things  did  not  go  too  far  and  lead  to  scepticism  they 
would  do  not  harm."  William  Rives's  petty  disposi 
tion  is  hit  off  perfectly  when  he  asks  Dr.  Lavendar 
for  the  return  of  a  postage  stamp. 

From  Old  Chester  Tales  have  been  reprinted  Where 
the  Laborers  Are  Few  and  Good  for  the  Soul.  An 
Encore  (1907)  and  A  Voice  (1912)  were  subse- 


MARGARET  DELAND  141 

quently  reprinted  in  Around  Old  Chester.  A  Voice 
recalls  Sir  Arthur  Quiller-Couch's  Love  of  Naomi,  as 
its  hero  John  Fenn  is  reminiscent  of  William  Geake. 
Each  young  preacher,  in  love  with  the  lady,  believes 
he  is  troubled  about  her  soul.  Mrs.  Deland's  story  is 
diverting  in  its  use  of  a  love  potion  and  the  all  but 
tragic  consequences  of  John  Fenn's  imbibing  it.  An 
Encore,  one  of  her  best  stories  for  plot,  recounts  the 
failure  of  Alfred  Price  to  bear  off  Letty  Morris  in 
the  springtime  of  their  lives;  and  their  triumphant 
elopement,  forty-eight  years  later,  when  she  is  sixty- 
six  and  he  seventy.  Not  the  least  of  its  charm  lies 
in  the  avoidance  of  the  ridiculous,  except  as  it  is  pro 
vided  through  the  son  and  daughter  who  are  absurd 
in  their  efforts  to  prevent  what  they  regard  as 
ridiculous.  Sally  (Old  Chester  Tales)  presents  a  situ 
ation  which  finds  a  parallel  in  Thomas  Hardy's  A 
Waiting  Supper;  but  Mrs.  Deland  is  optimistic,  the 
English  writer  fatalistic. 

One  scene  of  The  Third  Volume  (Around  Old 
Chester)  reaches  the  highest  dramatic  peak  in  the 
chain  of  Mrs.  Deland's  short  stories.  Peter  Walton 
and  his  wife  Eunice  loved  each  other  with  more  than 
absorbing  and  enduring  love.  When  she  died  he  would 
have  taken  his  life,  in  the  insanity  of  his  grief,  but 
for  his  brother  Paul.  Casting  about  for  some  means 
to  delay  his  imminent  suicide,  Paul  prevailed  upon  him 
to  decide  whether  he  should  do  so  through  a  game 
of  backgammon.  At  the  critical  point  in  the  game, 


142        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

played  in  the  room  where  Eunice  lay  dead,  Peter  seized 
his  wife's  hand  and  forced  it  to  drop  the  die  for  him. 
She  should  determine  whether  he  would  follow  her  or 
stay  behind.  The  die  fell,  a  double  five.  Paul  threw, 
he  declared,  a  double  six.  He  lied.  He  had  thrown 
a  five  and  two.  Shortly,  he  fell  into  a  decline,  the 
lie  heavy  on  his  soul.  But  when  he  confessed  just 
before  he  died,  his  brother  Peter  had  a  satisfactory 
interpretation.  Eunice,  he  thought,  had  suggested  the 
lie  to  Paul  that  he,  Peter,  might  not  sin  in  taking  his 
own  life.  Thomas  Hardy's  dice  throwing,  in  The 
Return  of  the  Native,  has  been  much  praised.  This 
scene  is  its  equal. 

Around  Old  Chester  came  after  R.  J.'s  Mother  and 
Some  Other  People  (1908).  Many  Waters,  of  the 
latter  volume,  which  had  received  a  prize  in  a  Collier's 
competition,  is  admired  in  some  quarters  more  than 
others  of  the  author's  tales.  The  struggle  is  empha 
sized,  rather  than  the  problem,  for  after  the  wife 
discovers  that  her  husband  is  a  thief  she  battles  with 
him,  and  successfully,  to  make  restitution.  This  vol 
ume  touches  the  Old  Chester  locale  only  here  and 
there.  The  Mormon  and  R.  J.'s  Mother,  for  example, 
lead  the  reader  into  more  cosmopolitan  settings. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  Mrs.  Deland's  novels 
were  also  appearing:  The  Awakening  of  Helena 
Ritchie  (1906),  The  Iron  Woman  (1911)  and  The 
Rising  Tide  (1916).  Articles  and  informal  essays  on 
the  war,  originally  contributed  to  various  periodicals, 


MARGARET  DELAND 

were  gathered  up  and  published  in  1919  under  the 
title,  Small  Things.  These  essays  are  beyond  the 
present  discussion  but  not  one  of  her  books  better 
reveals  her  acceptance  of  the  age  in  which  she  lives. 
As  Edith  Wharton  and  Dorothy  Canfield  had  done, 
she  fared  gallantly  forth  overseas  when  she  felt  the 
time  had  come  for  her  to  serve.  It  is  illuminating 
to  compare  her  girls  of  the  earlier  stories  with  the 
flesh  arid  blood  youngsters  who  were  her  protegees 
abroad.  Dorothea,  of  the  first  story  in  Old  Chester 
Tales,  is  a  true  specimen  of  the  timid,  shrinking,  color 
less  girl  whose  actions  are  predetermined  ordinarily, 
by  her  elders.  It  is  a  long  call  from  her  and  her  brave 
"'promises"  to  the  girls  crossing  the  ocean,  parents 
regardless,  for  work  in  France.  "You  never  could  tell 
where  the  damned  thing  was  going  to  hit,"  remarks 
one  of  the  young  ladies,  apropos  of  a  shell.  Mrs. 
Drayton  in  an  Old  Chester  tale  says,  "I  once  heard  him 
use  a  profane  word  myself.  .  I  should  not  be  willing 
to  repeat  it.  It  was — not  the  worst  one,  but  the  one 
with  V  in  it,  you  know." 

Mrs.  Deland  inscribes  most  of  her  works  to  her 
husband.  The  Promises  of  Alice  ( 1919),  a  long  short 
story,  bears  the  dedication  date  May,  1917,  and  con 
veys  the  year  of  his  death:  "To  Lorin/  This/  The 
Book  He  Helped  Me  Write/  In  Our  Last  Winter 
Together."  The  setting  of  this  tale  is  New  England, 
and  the  chief  character  is  the  daughter  of  a  preacher 
who  has  been  dedicated  to  missionary  service.  Her 


144        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

development  is  not  in  the  direction  planned.  The 
presentation  and  solution  of  her  problem  form  the 
ganglion  of  the  story. 

In  a  letter  to  the  present  writer,  Mrs.  Deland  once 
expressed  certain  preferences  for  her  own  work, 
though  she  confessed  she  found  it  hard  to  make  up 
her  own  mind  about  them.  "I  think  that  the  first 
story  in  'R.  J.'s  Mother/  the  one  that  gives  the  title 
to  the  book,  is,  perhaps,  technically  more  satisfactory 
to  me,  or  perhaps  I  ought  to  say  less  unsatisfactory 
to  me  than  any  of  the  others.  At  the  same  time,  I 
do  not  think  that  it  is  as  real  a  piece  of  work  as  some 
of  the  Old  Chester  Tales.  I  object  to  'Many  Waters/ 
because  it  is  not  simple  enough.  It  verges  once  or 
twice,  I  am  afraid,  upon  'fine  writing/  which  I  detest. 
I  suppose  I  fell  into  the  temptation  of  'fine  writing/ 
because  the  theme  was  so  emotional  that  it  tempted 
one  into  adjectives.  It  would  have  been  a  good  deal 
better  story,  I  think,  if  it  had  been  condensed  by  at 
least  one  quarter  of  its  present  length,  and  almost 
every  other  adjective  cut  out.  The  Old  Chester 
stories  have  the  defect  of  their  qualities.  They  are 
supposed  to  be  memories,  and  as  memory  wanders  con 
stantly  into  side  tracks,  so  these  stories  are  longer 
than  is  desirable." 

Mrs.  Deland  speaks,  then,  of  her  feeling  about  the 
writing  of  stories  as  contained  in  her  essay  The  Girl 
Who  Writes  (in  The  Common  Way,  1904)  and  says 
that  by  her  own  tests  some  of  her  stories  would  fall 


MARGARET  DELAND  145 

short  of  what  they  ought  to  be.  "I  fancy  if  I  had 
to  choose  any  of  them,  I  would  take  'Good  for  the 
Soul/  because  though  technically  it  is  not  as  compact 
a  piece  of  work  as  *R.  J/s  Mother/  it  is,  I  think, 
humanly  truer.  And  on  the  whole,  it  is  humanity  that 
counts,  rather  than  art/' 

Mrs.  Deland's  Short  Stories: 

Mr.  Tommy  Dove,  and  Other  Stories,  1893. 

The  Wisdom  of  Fools,  1897. 

Old  Chester  Tales,  1898. 

Dr.  Lavendar's  People,  1903. 

lR.  J.'s  Mother  and  Some  Other  People,  1908. 

Around  Old  Chester,  1915. 


CHAPTER  IX 

EDNA    FERBER 

FEW  critics  have  accused  Miss  Edna  Ferber  of 
preaching  a  doctrine.     "Me'n  George  Cohan," 
she  wrote  in  1912,  "we  jest  aims  to  amuse." 
But  few  would  deny  that  her  stories  possess  qualities 
sane  and  wholesome.     And  the  philosophy  on  which 
they  are  built  is  Work,  with  a  capital  W— Carlylean 
Work. 

It  is  not  remarkable  that  the  joy  of  work  illuminated 
throughout  her  scintillant  pages  has  been  forgotten  in 
the  display  itself,  as  the  great  cause  of  a  Fifth  Ave 
nue  night-parade  may  be  a  matter  of  indifference  to 
the  observer  who  "just  loves  pageants  and  processions, 
anyway."  The  flying  flags,  the  drum-beat  of  the 
march,  the  staccato  tread,  the  calcium  reds  and  yel 
lows  may  obscure  the  slogan  bearing  banner.  It  is 
remarkable  that  the  inciting  force  of  Miss  Ferber's 
triumphant  march  has  been  neglected  by  the  student 
of  underlying  causes.  There  are  those  of  us  who  be 
lieve  it  to  be  the  significant  word  she  has  chanted 
to  the  sisters  of  her  generation. 

To  one  who  has  followed  her  stories  from  the  be- 

146 


EDNA  FERBER  147 

ginning,  Miss  Ferber  would  seem  to  have  undergone 
a  silent  communion  with  herself,  and  after  asking, 
"What  shall  my  writing  stand  for?"  answered  un 
hesitatingly,  "Work!"  In  the  Emma  McChesney 
stories,  which  require  three  volumes — with  one  or  two 
overflowing  into  succeeding  collections,  she  emphasizes 
the  beauty  and  joy  and  satisfaction  that  are  the  need 
of  labor.  And  her  second  published  story  was  an 
Emma  story:  Representing  T.  A.  Buck  (American, 
March,  1911).  It  succeeded  The  Homely  Heroine, 
her  first,  published  in  Everybody's,  November,  1910. 
This  fact,  again,  may  escape  the  reader  of  her  first 
volume,  Buttered  Side  Down  (March,  1912),  which 
although  it  groups  a  number  of  her  representative 
"working"  characters  in  The  Leading  Lady,  A  Bush 
League  Hero,  and  The  Kitchen  Side  of  the  Door  yet 
presents  variations  of  the  main  theme.  As  for  ex 
ample,  the  last-named  cries  aloud  that  the  busy- folk 
on  the  kitchen  side  are  more  respectable  than  the  tip 
pling  ladies  and  gentlemen  (by  courtesy)  in  front. 
But  Roast  Beef  Medium  (1913),  including  stories 
written  and  published  before  some  of  those  in  the  first 
volume,  essays  to  sound  what  becomes  a  trumpet  call 
in  Emma  McChesney  and  Co.  (i9I5)- 
Hortense  of  Blue  Serge  thinks: 
"If  you're  not  busy,  you  can't  be  happy  very  long." 
"No,"  said  Emma,  "idleness,  when  you're  not  used 
to  it,  is  misery." 


148        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

And  Miss  Smalley  of  the  same  story: 

'I've  found  out  that  work  is  a  kind  of  self-oiler. 
If  you're  used  to  it,  the  minute  you  stop  you  begin 
to  get  rusty,  and  your  hinges  creak  and  you  clog  up, 
and  the  next  thing  you  know  you  break  down.  Work 
that  you  like  to  do  is  a  blessing.  It  keeps  you  young/* 

And  the  author  herself  (in  Sisters  Under  Their 
Skin)  : 

"In  the  face  of  the  girl  who  works,  whether  she 
be  a  spindle-legged  errand-girl  or  a  ten  thousand 
dollar  a  year  foreign  buyer,  you  will  find  both  vivacity 
and  depth  of  expression."  .  .  .  She  begins  this  story 
by  asserting:  "Women  who  know  the  joys  and  sorrows 
of  a  pay  envelope  do  not  speak  of  girls  who  work  as 
working  girls."  The  whole  story  hangs  on  this  thesis. 

When  Emma  visited  her  son,  Jock,  and  her  daugh 
ter-in-law,  Grace,  and  her  grand-daughter,  Emma  Me- 
Chesney,  charming  elderly  women  came  to  call. 

They  fell  into  two  classes :  "...  the  placid,  black- 
silk,  rather  vague  women  of  middle-age,  whose  face 
has  the  blank  look  of  the  sheltered  woman  and  who 
wrinkles  early  from  sheer  lack  of  sufficient  activity 
or  vital  interest  in  life;  and  the  wiry,  well-dressed, 
assertive  type  who  talked  about  her  club  work  and 
her  charities."  In  their  eyes  was  that  distrust  of 
Emma  which  lurks  in  the  eyes  of  a  woman  as  she  looks 
at  another  woman  of  her  own  age  who  doesn't  show 
it." 


EDNA  FERBER  149 

And  the  volume  ends  with  this  final  statement  (in 
An  £tude  for  Emma)  :  "  .  .  .  there's  nothing  equal 
to  the  soul-filling  satisfaction  that  you  get  in  solo- 
work." 

Miss  Ferber  has  expressed  sincerely  her  own  be 
liefs  in  these  and  other  passages,  and  throughout  the 
larger  structural  values  of  her  stories :  in  Emma's 
continuous  struggle  with  the  game  of  life,  exemplified 
in  a  series  of  individual  conflicts;  in  her  efforts  to 
make  of  Jock  a  man,  and  in  her  great  service  to  the 
T.  A.  Buck  Featherloom  Petticoat  Company.  In  an 
article  entitled  The  Joy  of  the  Job  (American,,  March, 
1918),  vShe  says  she  is  sorry  for  any  woman  who  can 
play  when  she  wishes.  "Play  is  no  treat  for  an  idler." 
She  works,  according  to  her  statement,  three  hundred 
and  fifty  mornings  a  year;  she  may  play  golf  on  the 
three  hundred  and  fifty-first.  It  is  not  that  she  lacks 
desire  to  play,  as  the  pink  and  green  sweaters  stream 
past  her  door.  But  the  habit  of  work  and  the  satis 
faction  that  comes  from  having  worked  are  such  that 
she  knows  the  eighteen  holes  of  golf  would  be  dull 
and  flat  once  she  deserted  her  typewriter  for  the  links. 
"And  that's  the  secret  of  the  glory  of  the  work  habit. 
Once  you've  had  to  earn  your  play,  you  never  again 
can  relish  it  unearned." 

From  Kalamazoo,  Michigan,  where  she  was  born 
August  15,  1887,  Edna  Ferber  moved  at  an  early  age 
to  Appleton,  Wisconsin.  There  she  went  to  "grade 


150        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

school"  and  to  "high  school,"  and  there  at  seventeen 
years  of  age  she  began  work  on  The  Daily  Crescent, 
the  youngest  reporter  of  her  time.  "It  was  a  harrow 
ing  job/*  she  admits,  including  as  it  did  for  her  day's 
work  "everything  from  the  Courthouse  to  the  Chicken 
Pie  Supper  at  Odd  Fellows'  Hall,  from  St.  Joseph's 
Monastery  to  the  crippled  flagman  at  the  railroad  cross 
ing  up  in  the  chute,  from  the  dry  goods  store  to  Law 
rence  University."  Small  wonder  she  learned  human 
ity.  When  a  critic  suggested  that  her  tales  possessed 
an  insight  into  human  nature  "which,  if  not  genuine, 
is  very  well  stimulated/'  her  retort  was  forthcoming: 
"Humanity?  Which  of  us  really  knows  it?  But  take 
a  fairly  intelligent  girl  of  seventeen,  put  her  on  a  coun 
try  daily  newspaper,  and  then  keep  her  on  one  paper 
or  another,  country  and  city,  for  six  years,  and — well, 
she  just  naturally  can't  help  learning  some  things  about 
some  folks."  ...  It  is  but  logical  that  human  interest 
leads  all  other  qualities  of  her  fiction. 

Miss  Ferber  has  told  how  from  a  hammock  on  her 
father's  porch,  where  she  spent  much  time  at  a  season 
when  she  required  rest — or  as  she  phrases  it,  when 
the  shop-sign  read  "Closed  for  Repairs" — she  studied 
the  passing  townspeople.  Life  became  for  her  a  great 
storehouse  in  which  at  desire  she  may  now  enter,  and 
from  the  shelves  of  which  she  may  take  down  what 
ever  she  needs. 

She  was  correspondent  for  two  Milwaukee  papers 
in  these  years  of  'prenticeship  and,  later,  for  The  Chi- 


EDNA  FERBER  151 

cago  Tribune.  And  she  finished  before  she  was  twen 
ty-four  her  first  novel,  Dawn  O'Hara,  her  experience 
with  which  speaks  for  her  artistic  and  literary  ideals. 
For  she  threw  the  script  into  the  waste-basket,  whence 
her  mother  rescued  it.  This  work,  to  some  extent 
autobiographic,  was  published  in  1911  and  brought  its 
author  immediate  success.  After  its  publication  she 
found  ready  market  for  her  short  stories. 

Many  of  these  first  tales  depend  for  background 
upon  Appleton,  which  becomes  "our  town"  in  The 
Homely  Heroine,  The  Leading  Lady,  Where  the  Car 
Turns  at  Eighteenth — spite  of  its  title — and  A  Bush 
League  Hero  (all  in  Buttered  Side  Down).  A  Bush 
League  Hero  was  written  after  a  summer  of  watching 
the  Bush  League  team  play  in  Appleton,  as  Miss  Fer- 
ber  wrote  the  Bookman  critic  who  expressed  amuse 
ment  over  her  naivete  in  connection  with  the  sport  of 
baseball.  By  and  by,  in  succeeding  volumes,  Apple- 
ton,  Beloit,  and  Slatersville  gave  way  to  Chicago  and 
New  York,  and  even  to  cities  of  other  countries.  But 
Chicago  and  New  York  are  her  preferred  settings,  as 
St.  Louis  and  New  York  are  Fannie  Hurst's. 

Her  earlier  stories,  like  her  later  ones,  are  about  men 
clerks,  women  clerks,  milliners,  traveling  salesmen  and 
saleswomen,  cooks,  stenographers,  leading  ladies, 
household  drudges,  advertising  specialists — the  list  is 
incomplete.  No  writer  shows  greater  growth  in  story- 
making  than  Miss  Ferber — one  need  only  compare 
Roast  Beef  Medium  with  any  of  the  later  McChesney 


152        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

stories — but  she  has  never  been  "strong  on  plot."  As 
she  herself  admits  she  does  not  know — and  presumably 
cares  less — what  a  plot  is,  she  can  hardly  feel  her  con 
fessed  ignorance  to  be  a  handicap.  In  fact,  she  goes 
so  far  now  and  then  as  to  twit  the  critic  who  insists 
upon  plot  as  the  sine  q\m  non  of  a  story.  In  The 
Eldest  (of  Cheerful — By  Request,  1918)  she  makes 
her  critic,  you  will  remember,  a  Self-Complacent  Young 
Cub,  who  says :  "Trouble  with  your  stuff  is  that  it  lacks 
plot.  Your  characterization's  all  right,  and  your  dia 
logue.  But  your  stuff  lacks  raison  d'etre — if  you  know 
what  I  mean."  To  which  she  retorts:  "But  people's 
insides  are  often  so  much  more  interesting  than  their 
outsides.  .  .  ."  And  it  is  with  people  she  succeeds 
best.  The  Eldest,  for  instance,  when  it  appeared  some 
years  ago  in  McClure's,  was  praised  by  Franklin  P. 
Adams  as  the  best  short  story  of  the  year.  Yet  the 
plot  is  worn  thin:  a  lover  comes  back  after  many 
years,  only  to  marry  the  sister,  the  younger  sister,  of 
his  former  sweetheart.  The  interest  lies  in  the  char 
acter  of  Rose,  the  drudge,  the  slave,  the  living  sacrifice, 
eternally  new  as  eternally  old.  In  the  same  volume, 
The  Gay  Old  Dog,  which  has  been  reprinted  at  least 
twice,  faithfully  portrays  a  loop-hound,  as  he  would 
be  known  in  his  Windy  City,  the  young  man  grown 
old  through  sacrifice,  the  counterpart  of  The  Eldest. 
Gallant  Emma  McChesney,  cheerfully  fighting  to  hold 
jdown  a  man-size  job — knowing  it  requires  six  times 
as  much  y?ork  from  a  woman  as  from  a  man  to  draw 


EDNA  FERBER  353 

for  her  the  same  salary — sprang  into  existence  as  the 
ideal  of  the  modern  business  woman.  She  will  reflect 
this  particular  age  in  her  own  particular  so  long  as 
popular  interest  holds;  after  that  time  she  will  serve 
for  the  antiquarian.  She  is  the  heroine  of  Roast  Beef 
Medium,  of  the  five  stories  in  Personality  Plus  (1914), 
of  which  her  son  is  the  hero,  and  of  Emma  McChesney 
and  Co.  (1915).  From  the  number,  or  chapters,  of 
the  last-named,  one  may  select  diverting  so-called 
stories.  No  reader  will  find  fault  with  Chickens,  dis 
playing  the  strong  mother  hand  of  this  charming  sales 
woman;  nor  with  Pink  Tights  and  Ginghams,  " featur 
ing" — as  Emma  would  say — her  sympathy  for  her  sex ; 
nor  with  Broadway  to  Buenos  Aires,  proving  her  busi 
ness  acumen,  her  boundless  energy,  and  her  zest  for  a 
fight;  nor  with  Thanks  to  Miss  Morrissey,  wherein 
after  all  she  reverts  to  an  old-fashioned  sort  of  woman. 
But  the  truth  is  that  the  author  is  a  novelist  in  her 
method.  She  leaves  the  reader  with  memories  of  her 
people,  as  novels  do  and  should  do,  not  with  memories 
of  a  story.  The  individual  tales  of  Emma's  prowess 
dwindle  in  comparison  with  the  fabric  he  creates  out 
of  Miss  Ferber's  generous  distribution  of  scraps  and 
his  own  pleasurable  tedium  in  piecing  them  together. 
They  are  ultimately  forgotten  in  the  whole  pattern. 
Mrs.  McChesney  has  become  real  to  her  creator.  In 
addressing  a  class  at  Columbia  University,  Miss  Fer- 
ber  said  quaintly,  "When  Emma  walks  in  upon  me,  I 
must  give  her  my  attention !" 


154        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Even  the  early  stories  of  Miss  Ferber  emphasize 
for  the  first  time  in  fiction  a  motive  as  old  as  the  stom 
ach  of  man:  food.  Pearlie  Schultz,  the  Homely  Her 
oine,  wins  her  first — and  doubtless  her  last — kiss 
through  her  noodle  soup,  her  fried  chicken,  and  hot 
biscuits ;  Jennie  of  Maymeys  from  Cuba  succumbs,  in 
her  hunger,  to  a  Scotch  scone,  after  mouth-watering 
descriptions,  by  the  author,  of  a  corner  fruit-stand 
and  the  grocery  department  of  a  big  store.  If  you 
would  be  made  ravenous,  O  weary  of  palate  one!  read 
Maymeys  from  Cuba.  And  if  you  would  recall  the 
days  of  yore  read  the  description  (in  The  Kitchen  Side 
of  the  Door)  "of  a  little  world  fragrant  with  mint, 
breathing  of  orange  and  lemon  peel,  perfumed  with 
pineapple,  redolent  of  cinnamon  and  clove,  reeking  of 
things  spirituous."  Of  a  world  where  "the  splutter 
of  the  broiler  was  replaced  by  the  hiss  of  the  siphon, 
and  the  pop-pop  of  corks  and  the  tinkle  and  clink  of 
ice  against  glass."  Perhaps  after  this  devastating  pas 
sage,  the  point  should  be  made  that  no  better  temper 
ance  story  has  ever  been  published;  beside  it,  most 
others  look  like  ready-made  propaganda. 

Nor  does  the  author  forget  the  negative  aspect  of 
this  food  business.  Emma  McChesney,  who  first  ap 
pears  in  "our  town,"  dying — in  her  travel-weariness 
— for  something  "cool,  and  green,  and  fresh,"  is  in 
formed  by  the  waitress  that  the  menu  offers  "ham'n 
aigs,  mutton  chops,  cold  veal,  cold  roast" — to  which 
Emma  hopelessly  interrupts,  "Two,  fried."  Specta- 


EDNA  FERBER  155 

tors  at  the  performance  of  Our  Mrs.  McChesney  will 
not  forget  Ethel  Barrymore's  winning  question  about 
the  prospect  for  supper,  the  desk  clerk's  "Hungarian 
goulash!"  nor  Ethel's  "My  God!"  as  she  departed 
stairward. 

Keats's  feast  in  The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes  has  long  been 
praised  by  epicures,  in  art,  if  not  in  food.  The  marvel 
is  that  no  one  between  Keats  and  Edna  Ferber  so 
emphasized  the  gustatory  appeal.  She  continues  it, 
with  subtle  discrimination,  in  The  Gay  Old  Dog.  He 
was  the  kind  of  man  who  mixes  his  own  salad  dress 
ing.  "He  liked  to  call  for  a  bowl,  some  cracked  ice, 
lemon,  garlic,  paprika,  salt,  pepper,  vinegar,  and  oil, 
and  make  a  rite  of  it." 

So  does  Miss  Ferber  make  a  rite  of  food  as  her 
generation  makes  of  it  a  ceremonial.  Three  titles  out 
of  six  covering  her  stories  suggest  eating,  the  latest 
of  which  is  humorously  reflective,  unconsciously  so, 
perhaps,  of  reduced  rations  ensuing  upon  the  war: 
Half  Portions  (1920).  Or  is  it  indicative  that  the 
author  is  losing  her  own  zest  in  food?  Some  years 
ago  she  thought  in  terms  of  food  comparisons.  For 
example,  to  the  Editor  of  The  New  York  Times*  she 
wrote :  "I'm  the  sort  of  person  who,  when  asked  point- 
blank  her  choice  of  ice-cream,  says,  'Chocolate,  I  think 
— no,  peach!  No — chocolate!  Oh,  I  don't  know/ 
That  being  true,  how  can  you  expect  me  to  name 
off-hand  the  story  which  I  consider  the  best  short  story 
*  January  25,  1914. 


156        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

in  the  English  language?"  It  may  be  mentioned,  in 
passing,  that  she  lists  Maupassant's  The  String  and 
The  Necklace,  O.  Henry's  An  Unfinished  Story,  Jesse 
Lynch  Williams's  Stolen  Story,  and  Neil  Lyon's  Love 
in  a  Mist  among  those  she  has  preferred — at  various 
times.  In  her  article,  The  Joy  of  the  Job,  note  the 
conditions  upon  which  the  "chicken  salad  is  a  poem, 
the  coffee  a  dream,  the  French  pastry  a  divine  confec 
tion."  Be  it  understood  that  all  this  is  quoted  in 
admiration. 

Miss  Ferber  compensates  her  reader  for  lack  of  plot 
values  by  her  character  interest,  as  has  been  observed, 
and  also  by  interest  in  immediate  detail.  And  this  is 
but  another  way  of  saying  that  she  entertains  by  her 
style.  She  probably  worked  like  a  young  fury,  through 
newspaper  training  and  through  conscious  study  of 
word  composition,  to  achieve  her  brilliant  pyrotech 
nics.  In  her  first  collection,  she  is  guilty  of  the  absurd, 
"  'No,  you  don't!'  hissed  Gus."  She  had  still  to  learn, 
apparently,  that  hissing  requires  a  sibilant  sound.  Or, 
if  she  meant  to  burlesque  faintly,  her  purpose  is 
not  obvious.  In  her  first  book,  again,  she  refers 
too  frequently  to  the  trite,  or  the  prevalent  trick.  'The 
short  November  afternoon  was  drawing  to  its  close 
(as  our  best  talent  would  put  it)"  .  .  .  "  'Better  bathe 
your  eyes  in  eau  de  cologne  or  whatever  it  is  they're 
always  dabbing  on  'em  in  books.'  "...  "As  the  nov 
elists  have  it,  their  eyes  met."  .  .  .  "As  the  story 


EDNA  FERBER  157 

writers  put  it,  he  hadn't  even  devoured  her  with  his 
gaze."  .  .  .  Her  later  stories  have  hardly  outgrown 
this  habit  of  jerking  and  calling  halt  to  the  steady 
march  of  the  narrative,  or  these  interruptions  for  which 
no  contrasting  cleverness  and  originality  can  compen 
sate. 

This  author,  like  Mr.  Joseph  Hergesheimer,  prob 
ably  grew  up  with  The  Duchess.  But  her  sardonic 
references  to  the  lady  leave  doubt  as  to  her  opinion. 
She  knew  her  Martin Chuzzle wit,  her  Jane  Eyre,  her  O. 
Henry,  and  her  Bible.  Her  admiration  for  George 
'ohan  is  genuine.  She  depreciates,  by  implication,  the 
"balled-up"  style  of  Henry  James.  Dickens  and  O. 
Henry  are  her  forbears  in  humor,  as  the  Holy  Scrip 
tures  back  her  philosophy.  .  .  . 

From  a  sort  of  cavil  against  New  York,  Miss  Ferber 
finally  came  to  New  York — no,  "came  on"  to  New 
York,  with  her  heroine  in  Sun  Dried.  Then,  her  first 
story  in  Emma  McChesney  and  Co.  gets  away  from 
Manhattan.  Her  love  for  travel  and  her  journalistic 
ability  to  profit  by  new  scenes  are  reflected  in  Broad 
way  to  Buenos  Aires  no  less  than  in  her  own  photo 
graphs  and  fact  articles.  The  Guiding  Miss  Gowd 
(of  Cheerful — by  Request)  testifies  to  an  acquain 
tanceship  with  Rome,  as  the  photograph  of  Miss  Fer 
ber  stepping  from  the  porch  of  a  summer  house  in 
Hawaii  is  proof  of  her  presence  there.  "Ain't  Nature 
Wonderful?"  (McClure's,  August,  1920)  creates  the 
certainty,  as  well  as  her  photograph  facing  an  article 


158        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

she  wrote  for  The  American,  of  December,  1916,  that 
she  knows  the  Rockies. 

All  her  stories  belong  to  the  O.  Henry  school,  but 
like  her  younger  sister,  Fannie  Hurst,  she  has  stolen 
away  and  farther  on,  bearing  with  her  from  the  modern 
wizard  only  the  trick  of  catching  interest  or  the  turn 
of  a  phrase.  If  O.  Henry  had  never  opened  Hearts 
and  Crosses  with  "Baldy  Woods  reached  for  the  bottle 
and  got  it,"  perhaps  she  might  not  have  begun  Cheer 
ful — by  Request  with  "The  editors  paid  for  the  lunch 
(as  editors  do)."  But  life  has  expanded  in  the  decade 
and  more  since  O.  Henry's  passing;  it  swings  in  arcs 
beyond  the  reach  he  needed  to  compass  all  of  it  he 
would.  This  one  of  his  successors  has  widened  the 
sweep,  as  the  lover  of  New  Bagdad  would  have  done 
had  he  lived. 

Half  Portions  is  a  varied  assortment  of  new  tales, 
as  Cheerful — by  Request  gathers  up  old  and  new.  The 
best  are,  as  one  would  anticipate,  stories  of  character, 
wherein  the  "story" — from  a  technical  point  of  view — » 
is  usually  negligible.  Old  Lady  Mandel  is  but  the 
summing  up  of  the  career  of  a  professional  mother. 
Yet  One  Hundred  Per  Cent,  besides  bringing  Emma 
back,  happens  to  be  one  of  the  first-rank  patriotic 
stories  published  in  the  progress  of  the  War.  April 
25th,  as  Usual  marks  the  height  of  her  accomplish 
ment  for  1919.  After  its  appearance  in  The  Ladies* 
Home  Journal  it  was  voted  by  the  Committee  from 
the  Society  of  Arts  and  Sciences  one  of  the  best  among 


EDNA  FERBER  159 

thirty-two  stories  of  the  year,  and  was  reprinted  in 
the  Society's  annual  volume — The  O.  Henry  Memorial 
Award  Prise  Stories. 

Miss  Ferber  stretches  a  continually  expanding  can 
vas;  she  is  prodigally  wasteful  of  whole  novels  in 
stories  like  The  Gay  Old  Dog  and  Old  Lady  Mandel, 
The  novel,  we  venture  to  predict,  is  the  field  wherein 
she  will  ultimately  "lay  by"  her  most  important  work. 

Miss  Ferber's  books  of  stories: 

Buttered  Side  Down,  1912. 
Roast  Beef  Medium,  1913. 
Personality  Plus,   1914. 
Emma  McChesney  and  Co.,  1915. 
Cheerful — by  Request,  1918. 
Half  Portions,  1920. 


CHAPTER  X 

MARY  WILKINS  FREEMAN 

MANY  years  have  gone  by  since  a  writer  in 
Harper's  Weekly  stated,  "It  seems  a  super 
erogation  to  say  aught  in  praise  of  her  work 
now,  but  we  are  apt  to  take  our  literary  benefactors 
so  much  for  granted  that  we  fail  to  realize  their  great 
ness,  and  fall  short  of  that  lively  sense  of  appreciation 
which  we  accord  the  fresh  and  unaccustomed  writer 
new  to  his  laurels.  Since  A  Humble  Romance  was 
written,  other  authors  have  come  and  gone,  some  have 
stayed,  and  will  stay  with  honorable  excellence,  but  to 
none  do  we  owe  so  much  during  these  years  for  that 
distinction  and  honor  which  upholds  our  literary  ideals 
as  to  the  name  of  Mary  Wilkins  Freeman." 

If  this  was  true  in  1903,  it  is  superlatively  so  to-day; 
for  Mrs.  Freeman's  succeeding  books,  her  variety  of 
subjects  and  the  extension  of  her  literary  territory 
have  strengthened  her  claim.  A  reviewer  taking  stock 
in  1900  of  her  short-story  store  might  have  put  down 
to  her  credit:  Item  i.  Two  containers  of  New  England 
stories  of  contemporary  life  labeled,  respectively,  A 
Humble  Romance  (1887),  and  A  New  England  Nun 

160 


MARY  WILKINS  FREEMAN  161 

'(1891).  Contents  indigenous  to  Massachusetts  and 
Vermont,  and  recommended  in  particular  to  buyers  of 
herbs  and  tonics.  Item  2.  Two  containers  of  an  odd 
mixture,  seemingly  for  children  but  agreeing  better 
with  adults,  labeled  Young  Lucretia  (1892),  and  The 
Love  of  Parson  Lord  (1900).  Item  3.  One  vessel  of 
cunningly  distilled  colonial  essence,  marked — for  lack 
of  more  appropriate  symbol — Silence  (1898).  Accom 
panying  this,  a  sort  of  baby  sample,  which  may  be 
transferred  later  to  a  larger  vessel:  In  Colonial  Times 
(1899).  And  the  reviewer  might  have  referred  to 
her  novels:  See  shelves  above  and  below  for  similar 
substances,  done  up  in  individual  packets. 

A  reviewer  a  score  of  years  later  must  add  to  Mrs. 
Freeman's  short-story  stock:  Understudies  (1901), 
Six  Trees  (1903),  The  Wind  in  the  Rosebush  (1903), 
The  Givers  (1904),  The  Fair  Lavinia  (1907),  The 
Winning  Lady  ( 1909) ,  and  The  Copy  Cat  ( 1914) .  In 
general,  he  will  observe  that  the  six  animals,  six  flow 
ers  and  six  trees  included  under  the  first  two  of  these 
titles  are  used  allegorically,  that  The  Wind  in  the  Rose 
bush  is  a  set  of  six  ghost  stories,  that  The  Givers,  The 
Fair  Lavinia  and  The  Winning  Lady  carry  on  the 
traditions  of  her  first  two  volumes,  with  perhaps  a 
diminution  of  New  England  and  a  heightening  of 
America,  and  that  The  Copy  Cat  is  the  most  delightful 
book  about  children,  for  adult  reading,  which  the  au 
thor  has  yet  turned  out.  And  the  same  reviewer 
would  note  that  her  best  novel,  The  Portion  of  Labor, 


162        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

was  published  in  1901.  He  might  recall  that  Conan 
Doyle  said  in  1894  that  her  Pembroke  of  that  year 
was  the  greatest  piece  of  American  fiction  since  The 
Scarlet  Letter. 

Any  criticism  or  appreciation  of  this  writer  of  short 
stories  should  take  account,  as  well,  of  her  novels.  To 
do  so  is  not  possible  in  these  limits.  But  since  she  is 
novelist  second  and  story-writer  first,  tentative  con 
clusions  will  need  less  correction  than  if  drawn  from 
her  novels  alone. 

Mary  Eleanor  Wilkins  was  born  in  the  year  of  Edith 
Wharton  and  O.  Henry,  1862,  at  Randolph,  Massa 
chusetts.  When  very  young  she  went  to  Brattleboro, 
Vermont,  where  she  passed  her  childhood  and  girl 
hood.  In  1874  she  spent  a  year  at  Mt.  Holyoke  Semi 
nary.  On  her  father's  death  she  returned  to  Randolph. 
There,  with  her  friend,  Miss  Mary  Wales,  she  lived 
until  1902.  On  January  first  of  that  year  she  was  mar 
ried  to  Dr.  Charles  Freeman,  of  Metuchen,  New  Jer 
sey.  The  years  since  then  have  meant  for  her  literary 
work  a  loss  of  intensity  in  exchange  for  a  correspond 
ing  breadth.  Uprooting  her  plant  from  New  England 
has  slightly  changed  its  flower ;  it  blows  more  freely, 
though  it  lacks  the  distinctive  perfume  of  its  native 
soil. 

One  of  the  first  considerations  attendant  upon  even 
the  slightest  reflections  over  Mrs.  Freeman's  stories  is 
their  number ;  a  second  is  their  variety,  within  a  given 


MARY  WILKINS  FREEMAN  163 

range.  Yet  it  is  still  the  fashion  to  think  loosely  that 
Mrs.  Freeman  has  written  books  only  of  New  England 
genre  life.  She  has  been  compared  falsely  to  Gerard 
Dow,  the  painter,  with  whom  the  connection  is  one 
of  subject  matter  only — as  another  critic  has  stated — 
and  with  whom  the  comparison  holds  in  only  one  di 
rection.  The  popular  concept,  it  is  true,  has  in  its  favor 
that  this  author's  most  distinctive  achievement  is  the 
interpretation  of  the  New  England  folk  life  of  the 
last  quarter  of  the  twentieth  century.  But  this  is  by 
no  means  to  say  that  the  rest  is  inconsiderable  or  that 
it  would  be  negligible  if  her  tales  treating  of  the  hum 
bler  classes  were  lost  forever. 

Her  prolificness  and  her  variety  are  explainable  in 
part  by  her  system  of  work.  She  told  Margaret  Ham 
ilton  Welch,  a  number  of  years  ago,  that  she  used  two 
machines,  on  which  were  two  novels  going  simultane 
ously.  Conceivably,  for  rest  from  either,  the  two 
would  be  of  as  different  types  as  she  could  manage.  She 
recently  expressed  herself  to  the  present  writer  as 
being  of  the  "sequential"  order.  She  sits  down  to 
write,  not  knowing  what  will  come,  but  she  begins  and 
continues,  thought  following  thought.  She  composes, 
sometimes,  seven  thousand  words  a  day,  typing  as  she 
goes ;  but  such  a  strain  may  result  in  enforced  idleness 
for  a  proportionate  period.  It  has  been  stated  in  arti 
cles  on  her  work  that  she  plans  before  composition. 
This  method  would  be  preferable  for  the  arguments  of 
those  who  advise  construction  before  writing;  but  the 


164        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

truth  is  that  by  her  own  confession  Mrs.  Freeman  is 
one  of  the  rare  and  vanishing  craftswomen  who  pro 
gress  by  inspiration.  Mary  Brecht  Pulver  is  another. 
Mrs.  Freeman,  however,  joins  to  her  first  inspirational 
draft  a  professional  finish.  She  revises  two  and  three 
times. 

Miss  Wilkins  was  in  her  twenties  when  she  was  em 
boldened  to  send  to  Miss  Mary  L.  Booth,  Editor  of 
Harpers  Bazar  the  manuscript  entitled  Two  Old  Lov 
ers.  It  is  an  old  story  now,  that  Miss  Booth  was  about 
to  lay  the  script  aside,  thinking  from  the  immature 
style  that  some  child  had  written  it — in  the  middle 
eighties  Miss  Wilkins  was  using  her  pen — when  her 
attention  was  arrested.  She  read  it  three  times  in  as 
many  moods  and  accepted  it.  The  payment  was  twen 
ty-five  dollars.  This  tale  is  somewhat  more  anecdotal 
in  type  than  are  its  successors,  though  it  is  handled  in 
the  short-story  manner,  with  accent  on  the  period  of 
waiting  and  suspense,  rather  than  upon  the  snap  at 
the  close. 

A  Humble  Romance  appeared  in  Harper's,  July, 
1884,  and  is  neither  better  nor  worse  than  the  average 
companion  pieces  of  A  Humble  Romance.  Its  theme 
is  unique,  if  apparently  trivial — Martha  Patch,  ovef 
seventy,  who  weaves  rag  carpets,  pieces  quilts  and 
braids  rugs,  has  been  engaged  by  two  of  her  neighbor^ 
"Mis'  Bliss  and  Mis*  Bennet,"  to  piece  a  quilt  foi 
each,  respectively.  After  Martha  has  finished  the 
quilts,  she  decides  she  has  confused  the  scraps,  pain- 


MARY  WILKINS  FREEMAN  165 

fully  takes  out  her  stitches,  transfers  the  bits  of  cloth 
— and  then  finds  that  she  was  right  at  first.  In  her 
effort  to  do  the  right  thing  and  in  her  battle  with 
pride  and  poverty,  she  very  nearly  dies.  But  "Mis' 
Peters'*  finds  her  and  restores  her  with  a  bit  of  toast, 
a  dropped  egg,  and  the  inevitable  New  England  tea. 
The  tale  is  of  representative  length — four  or  five 
thousand  words — and  it  is  further  illustrative  of  the 
characters  brought  for  the  first  time  in  a  democratic 
way  before  American  readers — old,  poor  old,  women. 

Old  Lady  Pingree's  case  is  more  pathetic  than  that 
of  Martha.  She  is  lame  in  one  hip,  so  old  she  has  not 
only  taken  thought  of  her  burial  clothes  and  money 
but  has  directed  "Mis'  Holmes"  where  to  look  for 
each  in  the  event  of  her  sudden  demise.  But  one  yet 
poorer  than  she  died  first,  to  whom  Old  Lady  Pingree 
gave  away  her  shroud  and  her  eighty  dollars  of  burial 
money.  The  pathos  of  these  worn-out  bodies,  aged 
without  having  lived,  is  not  emphasized  by  sob-getting 
stuff;  but  he  will  be  a  wretched  sort  of  reader  whose 
eyes  will  not  burn  at  the  final  words  of  Old  Lady  Pin 
gree.  After  she  has  received  the  gift  of  two  hundred 
dollars,  she  looks  fondly  after  Benny  and  Jenny  and 
wonders  whether  "they  are  any  happier  thinkin'  about 
gettin'  married  than  I  am  thinkin'  about  gettin'  bu 
ried." 

Her  old  women  show,  on  occasion,  a  strength  of 
character,  a  kind  of  masculine  determination,  which 
somewhat  controverts  the  theory  that  they  live  in  a 


i66        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

man-ruled  world.  An  Independent  Thinker  is  one  of 
this  type,  and  later  Old  Woman  Magoun  (in  The 
Winning  Lady,  1909).  Mrs.  Magoun  has  taken  care 
of  her  grandchild  Lily  since  the  mother's  death.  After 
Lily  is  fourteen  or  so,  still  at  heart  a  little  girl  carrying 
about  her  doll,  her  father  catches  sight  of  her — and 
her  beauty.  Old  Woman  Magoun  divines  that  he  is 
about  to  make  an  evil  bargain  with  regard  to  Lily,  and 
she  sets  off  with  the  child  to  Lawyer  Mason's.  She 
pleads  vainly  that  the  lawyer  and  his  wife  adopt  the 
little  girl.  On  the  way  home  she  permits  Lily,  who 
has  partaken  of  a  sour  apple  and  a  glass  of  milk,  to 
eat  night-shade  berries.  The  result  is  inevitable — as 
the  old  woman  had  foreseen. 

These  aged  ladies  are  frequently  spinsters  living 
alone,  like  Betsey  (A  Poetess,  of  A  New  England 
Nun)  ;  or  in  pairs,  like  Charlotte  and  Harriet  Shattuck, 
who  ran  away  from  the  Old  Ladies'  Home  (A  Mis 
taken  Charity) ,  back  to  their  poor  hovel  and  its  pump 
kin  vines.  Nor  are  the  old  ladies  always  poor  or 
humble.  In  The  Willow  Ware  (of  The  Fair  Lavinia) 
young  Adeline  Weaver  lives  with  her  stately  and  con 
ventional  Aunts  Elizabeth  and  Jane ;  Caroline  Munson 
is  the  heroine  of  A  Symphony  in  Lavender  (A  Hum- 
ble  Romance),  the  title  alone  being  adequately  descrip 
tive.  Louisa  Ellis,  the  New  England  Nun,  is  endowed 
with  a  sufficiency  of  worldly  goods.  Elizabeth  and 
Emily  Babcock  (of  A  Gala  Dress  in  A  New  England 
Nun)  are  poor,  but  distinctly  of  a  class  above  that  of 


MARY  WILKINS  FREEMAN  167 

flat-footed  Matilda  Jennings ;  the  Allerton  sisters  (The 
Travelling  Sister,  in  The  Winning  Lady),  though  of 
dwindled  possessions,  are  "college  educated"  and  their 
very  names — Helen,  Camille,  Susanne — point  to  a 
higher  social  stratum  than  that  of  A  Poetess,  An  Old 
Arithmetician  and  the  humble  sisters  of  these. 

The  Three  Sisters  and  the  Old  Beau  (in  The  Love 
of  Parson  Lord)  strikingly  relates  Mrs.  Freeman  to 
Hawthorne.  Rachel,  Nancy,  and  Camilla — of  whom 
the  youngest  is  nearly  seventy — entertain  the  old  man 
who  is  said  to  be  as  old  as  the  oldest  sister.  After  the 
death  of  the  other  two,  he  weds  Camilla.  The  bridal 
procession  cannot  but  recall  that  of  The  Wedding 
Knell.  The  kinship  between  the  two  writers  emerges 
more  strongly  in  Silence,  a  story  for  which  the  author 
has  expressed  a  preference  because  of  its  dramatic 
nature.  The  time  is  that  of  colonial  days,  and  besides 
this  period-kinship  with  The  Scarlet  Letter,  the  mood 
and  the  diction  of  the  two  are  similar.  The  story  of 
the  Hawthorne  vein  that  we  prefer,  however,  is  The 
Gold  (The  Fair  Lavinia).  In  no  respect  does  it  dis 
appoint  one  who  seeks  a  good  story  in  character  and 
action,  a  shock  at  the  end — not  at  all  calculated,  in 
the  mechanical  sense — and  a  reflection  of  the  period 
chosen.  No  reader  will  forget  the  substance  of  the 
denouement :  "She  looked  at  the  letter  again,  and  called 
out  its  contents  again  in  a  voice  shrill  with  hysteria: 
The  andirons,  the  fire-set,  the  handles  on  the  high 
boy,  the  handles  on  the  desk,  the  trimmings  of  the 


i<59        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

clock,  the  pendulum,  the  trimmings  on  the  best  bed, 
the  handles  on  the  dresser,  the  key  of  the  desk — 
Gold/  " 

Of  the  stories  in  Silence,  we  have  a  weakness  for 
The  Buckley  Lady.  It  takes  one  back  to  samplers, 
Watts' s  Hymns,  and  gravestones  bearing  crude  cheru 
bim  heads  and  wings ;  but  also  to  one  of  the  loveliest 
ladies  of  fiction.  Persis  Buckley  was,  quite  literally, 
made  a  lady  by  her  own  family,  that  she  might  be 
worthy  of  the  gentleman  who  would  return  for  her 
in  a  coach  and  four.  Her  heavy  sister  Submit  offers 
a  good  foil  for  her  beauty :  "Her  complexion,  although 
she  had  lived  so  much  within  doors,  was  not  sickly, 
but  pale  and  fine  as  a  white  lily.  Her  eyes  were  like 
dark  stars,  and  her  hair  was  a  braided  cap  of  gold, 
with  light  curls  falling  from  it  around  her  face  and 
her  sweet  neck."  And  Tabitha  admitted  that  she  could 
play,  had  a  pretty  voice  for  a  song,  and  could  dance 
— "though  that's  not  to  be  spoken  of  in  this  godly 
town."  Her  loveliness  was  so  poignant  that  when  the 
ultimate  hero  came  and  looked  upon  her,  "a  tremor  ran 
over  him,  his  lips  twitched,  and  all  the  color  left  his 
face."  The  Fair  Lavinia  is  described  as  of  such  beauty 
that  when  Harry  Fielding  fails,  time  after  time,  to 
catch  a  glimpse  of  her,  you  become  convinced  she  is 
another  Marjorie  Daw.  But  he  eventually  finds  her 
— only  to  prefer  the  real  heroine,  Isabel  Done.  E«re- 
linafs  Garden,  of  this  same  collection,  is  the  story  for 


MARY  WILKINS  FREEMAN 

which,  out  of  all  she  has  written,  Mrs.  Freeman  has 
an  expressed  predilection. 

Her  young  women  of  the  modern  era  are  too  frail 
and  negative  for  one  always  to  sympathize  with  them. 
Levina  (of  Brakes  and  White  Vi'lets)  is  a  slender 
young  girl,  whose  "fair  colorless  hair  was  combed 
smoothly  straight  back  from  her  high,  pale  forehead; 
her  serious  blue  eyes  looked  solemnly  out  from  beneath 
it."  Nanny  Penn,  of  The  Revolt  of  "Mother"  is 
blonde,  heavy,  and  not  very  strong.  Most  of  these 
girls,  you  know,  will  continue  their  non-complaining, 
laborious  existence  as  wives  of  farmers  or  day  la 
borers.  But,  occasionally,  long  repression  breaks  out, 
as  with  Narcissa  Stone,  past  middle  age.  After  her 
father's  death,  as  may  be  recalled,  she  took  her  mother 
to  New  York  with  the  intention  of  remaining  one  year 
on  the  fifteen  hundred  dollars  insurance  money.  (See 
One  Good  Time,  in  The  Love  of  Parson  Lord.)  There 
is  no  humor,  only  satisfaction,  in  Narcissa's  account 
of  her  six  days  in  New  York,  for  her  or  her  faithful 
William  Crane ;  but  there  is  for  the  reader.  And  there 
is  a  deep  understanding  of  the  rebellion  that  long  had 
smoldered  toward  this  flare.  Repression  may  emerge 
as  successful  rebellion  in  the  married  woman's  life;  as 
with  Mother  of  the  famous  Revolt.  This  story  first 
appeared  in  Harper's,  September,  1890.  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  then  Governor  of  New  York,  in  addressing 
a  gathering  of  mothers  recommended  them  to  read  it, 
for  its  strong  moral  lesson.  Probably  this  reference 


i;o        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

accounts  for  its  popularity.  It  has  been  reprinted  in 
half  a  dozen  collections  of  stories  (outside  of  the  au 
thor's  A  New  England  Nun)  and  lauded  as  a  "model" 
by  story  technicians. 

But  it  has  been  a  bete  noire  to  its  author.  She  says 
in  The  Saturday  Evening  Post,  December  8,  1917,  as 
she  has  said  many  times  in  substance :  "People  go  right 
on  with  almost  Prussian  dogmatism,  insisting  that  the 
Revolt  of  Mother  is  my  one  and  only  work.  It  is  most 
emphatically  not.  Were  I  not  truthful,  having  been 
born  so  near  Plymouth  Rock,  I  would  deny  I  ever 
wrote  that  story.  I  would  foist  it  upon  somebody  else. 

"In  the  first  place,  all  fiction  ought  to  be  true,  and 
the  Revolt  of  Mother  is  not  in  the  least  true.  When 
I  wrote  that  little  tale  I  threw  my  New  England  tra 
ditions  to  the  wind  and  trampled  on  my  New  England 
conscience.  I  have  had  and  still  have  retribution." 
She  insists  that  the  story  is  spineless.  "There  never 
was  in  New  England  a  woman  like  Mother.  If  there 
had  been  she  most,  certainly  would  not  have  moved 
into  the  palatial  barn. . .  .  She  simply  would  have  lacked 
the  nerve.  She  would  also  have  lacked  the  imagina 
tion."  And  she  adds  that,  as  a  rule,  women  in  New 
England  villages  do  hold  the  household  reins,  and  with 
good  reason.  "They  really  can  drive  better." 

"It  is  a  dreadful  confession,  but  that  woman  called 
'Mother'  in  The  Revolt  of  'Mother'  is  impossible.  I 
sacrificed  truth  when  I  wrote  the  story. . .  .  My  literary 
career  has  been  halted  by  the  success  of  the  big  fib 


MARY  WILKINS  FREEMAN 

in  that  story.  Too  late  I  admit  it.  The  harm  is  done. 
But  I  can  at  least  warn  other  writers.  When  you 
write  a  short  story  stick  to  the  truth.  If  there  is  not 
a  story  in  the  truth,  knit  until  truth  happens  which 
does  contain  a  story." 

It  is  not  amiss  to  parenthesize  over  that  figure  drawn 
from  knitting.  Mrs.  Freeman  knitted  during  the 
World  War,  though  she  has  been  taken  to  task  by  at 
least  one  critic  for  producing  in  its  progress  the  child 
stuff  of  The  Copy-Cat!  The  stories  of  The  Copy-Cat 
had  been  produced  before  war  was  declared.  .  .  . 

But  to  revert  to  The  Revolt.  Mrs.  Freeman  is  a 
story-maker,  preeminently,  and  although  she  combines 
assurance  with  "merciless  modesty,"  she  does  not  al 
ways,  we  are  inclined  to  believe,  distinguish  between 
her  better  and  her  inferior  work.  Stevenson  knew 
that  you  can  make  a  story  true  by  finding  the  right  key 
for  it.  The  Revolt  is  pitched  right;  the  characters 
are  clear,  like  the  people  you  see  standing  before  you, 
or  that  you  recall  from  last  year  through  vibrant 
memory.  The  fact  is  that  whether  any  New  England 
woman  ever  has  moved  into  a  barn  or  ever  will  move, 
"Mother"  did  so.  We  know  it.  It  is  entirely  useless 
for  the  author  to  repent  and  to  try  to  convince  us 
otherwise.  The  truth  in  fiction  is  stronger  than  the 
fact  in  life.  It  is  lamentable  that  this  narrative,  as 
a  coin  held  near  the  eyes  will  cut  off  the  sun,  has  ob 
scured  many  other  good  tales  by  this  author.  It  is 
not  superior  to  A  Gala  Dress,  A  New  England  Nun, 


172        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

A  Church  Mouse,  or  A  Kitchen  Colonel,  all  of  the 
same  collection,  not  to  mention  four  stories  of  as  many 
other  volumes:  The  Gold,  The  Buckley  Lady,  The 
Givers,  and  The  Shadows  on  the  Wall 

Mrs.  Freeman  has  stated  that  she  does  not  lift  char 
acters  from  life.  "All  in  my  books  who  are  real,  are 
dead,"  she  once  stated.  But  she  also  admitted  that 
her  making  the  characters  do  the  things  that  individuals 
of  the  type  they  represent  would  do  in  similar  envi 
ronment  is  remarkably  confirmed.  One  is  perfectly 
convinced  that  energetic  Sophia  Lane  (of  The  Givers) 
was  capable  of  returning  useless  and  undesirable  wed 
ding  gifts  sent  her  niece,  and  equally  convinced  that 
she  was  capable  of  securing  desirable  ones  to  take  their 
places.  And,  again,  one  is  equally  sure  that  somewhere 
Sophia  Lane  has  her  counterpart  in  real  life. 

Her  most  successful  heroine  of  the  homely  type  is 
she  of  A  Humble  Romance.  Critics  have  commented 
upon  the  indelibility  of  the  events  and  the  portrait  of 
Sally.  "Her  finger  joints  and  wrist  bones  were  knotty 
and  out  of  proportion,  her  elbows  which  her  rolled-up 
sleeves  displayed,  were  pointed  and  knobby,  her  shoul 
ders  bent,  her  feet  spread  beyond  their  natural  bounds 
— from  head  to  foot  she  was  a  little  discordant  note. 
She  had  a  pale,  peaked  face,  her  scanty  fair  hair  was 
strained  tightly  back  and  twisted  into  a  tiny  knot,  and 
her  expression  was  at  once  passive  and  eager." 

A  girl  above  her  sisters  in  beauty  is  required  for  one 
type  of  heroine;  but  one  below  them,  in  fortune  and 


MARY  WTLKINS  FREEMAN  173 

looks,  is  more  frequently  preferred.  And  this  is  true, 
in  particular,  when  she  happens  to  be  one  of  the  num 
berless  variants  of  the  Cinderella  heroine,  who  finally 
comes  out  ahead.  If  she  possesses  some  master  virtue, 
as  Sally  possessed  loyalty,  she  will  win.  No  reader 
can  forget  Sally,  her  marriage  to  the  tin  peddler,  Jake's 
disappearance,  her  long  waiting,  her  peddling  the  tins, 
and  her  child-like  joy  over  Jake's  return. 

Her  old  men  are  complements  of  the  female  charac 
ters;  they  are  either  set  like  "Father"  of  The  Revolt, 
and  Alfred  Toilet  of  Gentian,  or  ascetic,  like  Nicholas 
Gunn,  The  Solitary.  Else,  they  are  old  men  who  are 
terribly  in  subjection  to  the  females.  Barney  Swan, 
described  in  the  title,  A  Village  Lear,  dies  in  the  house 
of  Sarah  Arnold,  with  delirious  visions  of  Ellen  and 
Viny,  his  ungrateful  daughters,  coming  to  him  across 
the  fields.  A  Kitchen  Colonel  portrays  Abel  Lee,  aged 
seventy-eight,  as  self-effacing,  from  the  first  picture 
wherein  he  cleans  dandelions,  to  the  last,  wherein  he 
hastens  from  the  room  of  the  wedding,  missing  the 
essential  ceremony,  to  see  that  the  milk  does  not  burn. 
Within  closer  limits  she 'differentiates  her  old  men  well. 
The  kitchen  colonel  is  handsome,  though  his  face  is 
spare ;  his  features  show  gentle  patience.  Old  Ephraim, 
his  neighbor,  has  sharp  features,  "his  old  blue  eyes 
took  on  a  hard  twinkle,  like  blue  beads." 

Mary  Moss  once  estimated  in  an  article  for  The 
Bookman:  "In  the  census  of  a  Mary  Wilkins  village 
:he  proportion  of  inhabitants  would  approximate  sixty 


174        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

women  upwards  of  seventy  years  old,  five  old  men, 
fifteen  middle-aged  women,  eight  middle-aged  men, 
seven  girls,  three  eligible  bachelors,  two  children."  One 
may  extend  the  principle:  two  of  the  three  bachelors 
would  live  together,  forty  of  the  old  women  singly, 
and  seventeen  in  various  combinations  with  her  own 
class  or  the  other  possible  inhabitants ;  the  eight  middle- 
aged  men  and  the  seven  girls  would  be  shared  in  vari 
ous  relationships  among  the  fifteen  middle-aged  women. 
The  houses  in  which  they  lived  would  be  dominated  by 
the  kitchen,  with  emphasis  on  the  sink;  in  the 
living  room  a  center  table  would  boast  a 
lamp  mat  and  lamp,  or  else  an  array  of  albums;  the 
mantel-piece  would  support  an  old-fashioned  clock; 
and  a  bracket  on  the  wall,  wax  flowers  under  a  case 
of  glass.  A  hair-cloth  sofa,  chairs  and  pictures  might 
complete  the  list  of  remaining  properties.  The  author 
introduces  a  typical  family  in  One  Good  Time:  "Rich 
ard  Stone  was  nearly  seventy-five  years  old  when  he 
died,  his  wife  was  over  sixty,  and  his  daughter  Nar- 
cissa  past  middle-age/' 

You  will  observe  that  the  season  Mrs.  Freeman  fa 
vors  is  usually  one  of  snow.  Her  country  is  cold  and 
barren;  but  from  it  spring  flowers  clean  and  rare,  like 
those  on  all  high  and  stony  places ;  over  it  is  the  bracing 
mountain  air,  and  throughout  its  length  and  breadth 
a  homely  sympathy.  And  blue  houstonias  bloom  in 
the  cemeteries. 

There  are  now  more  than  two  children  in  proportion 


MARY  WILKINS  FREEMAN  175 

to  the  other  members  of  the  village.  Chronologically, 
Young  Lucretia — who  placed  Christmas  presents  for 
herself  on  the  tree,  because,  as  she  told  her  aunts, 
"they  said  you  was  cross  and  stingy  ...  an'  I  didn't 
want  'em  to  think  you  were" — is  followed  by  The 
Little  Maid  at  the  Door  (in  Silence),  a  story  of  de 
serted  childhood  set  in  the  days  of  the  Salem  witch 
craft  terror.  Mrs.  Freeman  has  a  canny  knowledge 
of  childish  mental  processes:  "She  turned  about  and 
went  back  to  the  house,  with  tears  rolling  over  her 
cheeks;  but  she  did  not  sob  aloud,  as  she  would  have 
done  had  her  mother  been  near  to  hear."  This  Little 
Maid  finds  comfort  in  a  corn-cob  after  her  "poppet" 
had  been  thrown  down  the  well,  recalling  Cosette,  in 
Les  Miser  ables,  who  crooned  over  her  make-shift  doll 
before  Jean Val jean  presented  her  with  the  beauty  from 
the  shop.  Again,  Love  Lord's  doll  has  been  taken  away 
from  her.  She  finds  it  in  the  garret:  "She  gazed  at 
its  poor  old  rag  face,  its  wide  mouth  painted  gro 
tesquely  with  pokeberry  juice,  its  staring  eyes  outlined 
in  circles  of  India  ink.  She  stroked  lovingly  the  scanty 
locks  made  from  a  ravelled  brown  silk  stocking.  She 
knew  that  the  doll  was  miserably  ugly,  but,  by  a  sort 
of  under-knowledge  of  love,  she  also  knew  she  was  fair. 
.  .  .  She  kissed  her  as  she  had  never  kissed  any  living 
thing."  So  does  this  author  reveal  her  understanding 
of  one  type  of  little  girl.  Lucy,  of  The  Givers,  is  the 
sister  of  the  Little  Maid  and  of  Love  Lord.  She 
illustrates,  still  further,  the  author's  ability  to  get  under 


176        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

the  skins  of  her  very  young  people.  You  are  sure  had 
you  been  in  Little  Lucy's  place  you  would  be  uncertain 
whether  you  were  Lucy  Ames  or  Lucy  Hooper  and 
whether  you  had  come  from  Brookfield,  Massachu 
setts,  or  Cleveland,  Ohio.  Little  Girl-Afraid-of-a-Dog 
(in  The  Winning  Lady)  is  equally  well  psychologized, 
with  respect  to  fear  succeeded  by  fearlessness. 

In  The  Copy-Cat  (1914),  the  author  has  created 
types  which  become  epitomes  of  living  individuals  we 
all  know.  The  Cock  of  the  Walk,  Little  Lucy  Rose 
and  Big  Sister  Solly  are  in  the  gallery  with  Penrod, 
William  Sylvanus  Baxter's  sister  Jane,  and  Randolph 
H.  Dukes.  Big  Sister  Solly  represents  the  child  who, 
out  of  her  loneliness,  invents,  creates — nay,  to  whom 
comes — a  Big  Sister  Solly.  Perhaps  your  own  lonely 
little  sister,  who  came  along  after  you  grew  up  and 
went  to  college,  was  visited  by  one  of  these  loving  and 
lovely  companions.  "Little  Hon"  came  to  your  small 
sister  and  "went  away"  when  the  vacation  time  took 
you  to  her  again.  If  the  being  that  Content  Adams 
envisioned  may  be  regarded  as  an  evoked  ghost,  she 
represents  only  one  of  the  numerous  spirit  types  Mrs. 
Freeman  has  created.  The  Little  Maid,  we  know,  is 
dead  and  buried  in  her  straight,  white  robe.  But 
when  sweet  Ann  Bailey  came  to  the  Proctor  house  she 
leaned  eagerly  from  her  pillion  and  smiled  and  kissed 
her  hand. 

"Why  look  you  thus,  Ann?"  her  husband  asked, 
looking  about  at  her. 


MARY  WILKINS  FREEMAN  177 

"See  you  not  the  little  maid  in  the  door?"  she  whis 
pered  low,  for  fear  of  the  goodly  company.  "I  trow 
she  looks  better  than  she  did.  The  roses  are  in  her 
cheeks,  and  they  have  combed  her  yellow  hair,  and  put 
a  clean  white  gown  on  her.  She  holds  a  little  doll,  too." 

This  story  seems  to  say  at  the  close  that  we  see  only 
the  ghosts  we  wish  to  see.  Ann's  husband  had  caught 
sight  of  others,  when  first  he  and  she  rode  by.  But 
in  the  atmosphere  of  witchcraft,  the  represented  facts 
bring  you  a  strange  thrill. 

The  Wind  in  the  Rosebush,  including  six  tales  of 
the  supernatural,  contains  one  remarkable  vampire 
story — though  no  such  word  is  used  of  Luella  Miller 
— and  one  capital,  real  ghost  tale — The  Shadows  on 
the  WdL  This  story,  which  successfully  challenges  the 
reader  to  believe  in  the  shadow  of  a,  ghost  makes  use 
of  a  principle  most  modern  technicians  have  seized. 
One  believes  in  shadows  sooner  than  realities  because 
the  shadow  implies  the  reality;  suggestion  is  stronger 
than  statement.  If,  then,  the  shadow  of  a  ghost  falls 
upon  the  wall,  the  ghost,  even  though  invisible,  must 
be  present.  This  story,  one  of  Mrs.  Freeman's  very 
best,  has  been  justly  admired.  Julian  Hawthorne  re 
printed  it  in  his  Library  of  Mystery  and  Detective 
Stones  (American) ;  W.  Patten  included  it  in  his  first 
volume  of  International  Short  Stories. 

Mrs.  Freeman's  work  has  been  criticized  as  lacking 
color.  The  nature  of  her  subject-matter  would  bar  it 
—except  in  the  tales  of  young  love  and  her  later  stories 


i;8        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

about  children — but  her  fondness  for  green  looks  out 
here  and  there  from  her  earliest  to  her  latest  pages. 
It  is  well  adapted  to  her  slight  and  fair  girls :  Adeline 
(of  The  Willozv-Ware)  dresses  in  a  cross-barred  mus 
lin,  sprigged  with  green  leaves,  ties  a  green  ribbon 
about  her  waist  and  puts  on  her  necklace  of  emeralds 
before  she  descends  to  meet  Elias  Harwell.  The  Buck 
ley  Lady,  in  her  green  silk  pelisse,  green  petticoat  and 
green  bonnet,  sits  "undistinguishable  as  a  green  plant 
against  the  trunk  of  the  tree."  The  Ring  with  the  Green 
Stone  (Harper's,  February,  1917)  throws  a  green 
atmosphere  over  the  reader,  at  the  outset  of  the  tale. 
No  writer  better  understands,  though  it  may  be  uncon 
scious  art  with  this  author,  the  value  of  integrating 
"her  effects,  in  color  and  sound.  If  they  are  sparingly 
needed,  these  harmonies,  she  gets  along  without  them. 

She  also  manages  well  her  story  clues.  If  a  little 
girl  is  to  die  of  eating  poisonous  berries,  she  will  not 
eat  them  too  unexpectedly  and  fortuitously.  She  will 
notice  them  much  earlier  in  the  action  and  ask  whether 
she  may  have  them.  If  Barney  Swan  is  to  be  taken  in 
at  the  last  by  Sarah  Arnold,  then  Sarah  will  appear 
in  the  opening  of  the  story,  not  at  the  last  moment  by 
coincidence. 

Emphasis  has  been  laid  upon  Mrs.  Freeman's  char 
acters,  rather  than  her  plot,  for  the  purpose  of  sug 
gesting  her  people  and  her  locale  who  give  signifi 
cance  to  the  plots.  In  stories  however  brief,  these  char 
acters  are  struggling;  sometimes  they  are  involved  in 


MARY  WILKINS  FREEMAN  179 

complications.  It  may  be  only  a  struggle  to  be  honest 
in  the  matter  of  scraps;  it  may  be  a  struggle  between 
two  strong  wills,  as  between  "Father"  and  "Mother" 
of  The  Revolt;  it  may  be  a  struggle  of  a  young  girl 
to  "bear  up"  and  have  faith  until  her  husband  re 
turns,  a  struggle  combined  with  another  line  of  in 
terest  which  brings  about  the  complication  in  A  Hum 
ble  Romance.  Mrs.  Freeman  seldom  writes  a  "story" 
that  is  other  than  a  story,  resting  on  solid,  if  slight, 
groundwork  of  plot  or  fable.  It  will  be  observed  that 
neither  her  Understudies  nor  her  Six  Trees  has  been 
drawn  upon  for  illustration.  The  titles  are  accurate: 
these  are  studies,  like  those  of  People  in  Our  Neigh 
borhood.  They  were  listed  above  because  of  the  kin 
ship  they  bear  to  the  short  story  and  because  of  their 
brevity.  The  author's  object  was  to  create  pictures 
detached  from  action.  Yet  even  here,  her  narrative 
often  does  the  describing.  When  we  think  of  Amanda 
Todd:  the  Friend  of  Cats  (People  of  Our  Neighbor 
hood),  we  think  rather  of  the  ten  saucers  filled  with 
milk,  for  the  cat,  one  for  each  day  of  Amanda's  ab 
sence.  In  recalling  Morning -Glory  (of  Understudies), 
we  remember  that  Alexander  Bemis  was  a  boy  of 
promise,  but  that  he  had  a  love  affair  which,  ending 
disastrously,  may  have  had  something  to  do  with  his 
ultimate  failure.  We  may  lose  sight  of  the  morning- 
glory  comparison,  that  is,  in  following  the  actual  in 
cidents. 

Mrs.    Freeman's    short-stories    are   always    units. 


i8o        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Very  occasionally  a  character  of  one  story  may  rcup- 
pear  in  another;  but  the  stories  themselves  are  sepa 
rate  and  independent ;  there  is  no  interlinking.  Rather 
are  some  of  her  so-called  novels  a  series  of  inter 
linking  tales.  Her  best  work  will  stand,  a  collection 
of  stories  of  village  and  country  life,  reflecting  a  phase 
of  society  in  an  era  that  is  passing. 

Her  style  is  marked  by  extreme  clearness.  It  is 
the  notable  quality  in  her  fiction  as  it  is  the  quality 
she  urges  upon  The  Girl  Who  Wants  to  Write :  "Above 
all  things  in  the  matter  of  style  strive  for  clarity.  .  .  . 
If  you  lack  complete  mastery  of  a  language,  use  short 
sentences  and  simple  words."  Her  own  sentences,  of 
French  brevity,  etch  her  clear  pictures  upon  the 
reader's  brain.  And  her  contribution  is  American,  as 
she  urges  Americanism  upon  the  young  writer:  "If  a 
writer  is  American,  she  should  carry  her  patriotism 
into  her  work.  Look  upon  the  scene  with  American 
eyes,  and  from  an  American  viewpoint. " 

Mrs.  Freeman's  volumes  of  short  stories: 

A  Humble  Romance,  1887. 

A  New  England  Nun,  1 89 1 . 

Young  Lucretia,  1892. 

Silence,  and  Other  Stories,  1898. 

In  Colonial  Times,  1899. 

The  Love  of  Parson  Lord,  and  Other  Stories, 

1900. 
Understudies,  1901. 


MARY  WILKINS  FREEMAN  181 

Six  Trees,  1903. 

The  Wind  in  the  Rosebush,  1903. 

The  Givers,  1904. 

The  Fair  Lavinia  and  Others,  1907. 

The  Winning  Lady,  1909. 

The  Copy-Cat,  1914. 


CHAPTER  XI 

HAMLIN     GARLAND 

THROUGHOUT  the  literature  of  English  fiction 
there  have  been  men  and  women  of  sufficient 
courage  to  write  of  life  as  it  is — not  as  it  might 
be  or  should  be.  Thomas  Deloney,  realist  of  the  Eliza 
bethan  Age,  mirrored  the  world  of  weavers  and 
cobblers  about  the  time  Sir  Philip  Sidney  was  con 
structing  the  romantic  kingdom  of  Arcadia ;  Jane  Aus 
ten  reflected  the  early  nineteenth  century  in  works 
which  gently  satirized  such  exaggerations  as  Mrs, 
Radcliffe's  The  Mysteries  of  Udolpho;  Anthony  Trol- 
lope,  somewhat  later,  in  his  study  of  existing  condi 
tions,  balanced  the  caricatures  of  Dickens.  A  similar 
process  has  operated  in  France,  by  which  the  realists 
have  maintained  the  equilibrium  of  letters;  in  Russia 
the  realists  have  dominated. 

In  America,  the  romance  of  Hawthorne  and  of  Poe 
was  succeeded  by  a  hybrid  romantic-realism  in  Bret 
Harte,  after  whom  William  Dean  Howells,  Mary 
Wilkins  Freeman  and  Hamlin  Garland  contributed 
in  their  stories,  pictures  of  things  as  they  are.  It 
might  appear,  as  Mr.  Cabell  says,  in  effect,  in  Beyond 

182 


HAMLIN  GARLAND  183 

Life  (we  cite  from  memory),  that  the  daily  paper 
affords  realism  and  that  the  essence  of  literature  is 
away  from  fact.  It  is  true,  also,  that  the  "real  short 
story"  is  by  its  very  conditioning  a  romantic  composi 
tion.  But  these  criteria  do  not  prevent  a  lively  flow  of 
gratitude  to  those  writers  whose  concept  of  art  is 
photographic  rather  than  creative. 

Of  the  realists  America  has  produced,  Hamlin  Gar 
land  is  the  most  unsparing.  This  fact  results  from 
his  literary  ideals :  that  truth  is  a  higher  quality  than 
beauty,  "and  that  to  spread  the  reign  of  justice  should 
everywhere  be  the  design  and  intent  of  the  artist"; 
and,  further,  from  the  fact  that  the  life  he  knew,  upon 
which  he  depended  for  his  expression,  was  severer 
than  that  reflected  by  Mr.  Howells,  Miss  Wilkins,  or 
any  other  realistic  writer  in  America.  For  Mr. 
Garland  writes  of  life  as  he  knows  and  has  known  it. 
His  A  Son  of  the  Middle  Border  (1917)  is  a  great 
human  document,  covering  a  time  and  place  attempted 
by  no  other  factual  work.  In  its  description  of  the 
Middle  West  it  is  comparable  to  Parkman's  The  Cali 
fornia  and  Oregon  Trail;  in  its  autobiographical  na 
ture,  to  The  Education  of  Henry  Adams.  In  this  book 
Mr.  Garland  asserts  that  "childish  impressions  are  the 
fundamentals  upon  which  an  author's  fictional  output 
is  based."  To  read  the  volume  and  to  read  his  stories 
is  to  know,  past  adventure,  that  his  real  life  and  his 
stories  are  of  one  and  the  same  material.  The  identity 
is  so  marked  that  here  and  there  the  same  incidents 


184        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

occur,  the  same  characters,  and  the  same  criticisms  of 
life. 

Hamlin  Garland  was  born  at  West  Salem,  Wis 
consin,  September  16,  1860.  His  earliest  memories 
are  of  Greene's  Coule,  or  Coolly,  where  he  and  his 
mother  and  older  sister  and  small  brother  Frank  were 
living  when  his  father,  Richard  Garland,  returned 
from  the  Civil  War.  His  grandfather  Garland  had 
gone  West,  from  Maine ;  his  mother's  people,  the  Mc- 
Clintocks,  were  from  Ohio.  The  elder  Garland  was 
a  mystic  and  dreamer ;  Richard  Garland  was  a  concise 
story  teller  and  lover  of  drama;  Hamlin's  mother  and 
Uncle  David  played  the  violin.  In  these  details  one 
finds  part  explanation  of  the  boy  who  was  to  become 
the  most  distinguished  of  the  Garland  family. 

The  population  of  Wisconsin  in  those  days  was 
almost  pure  American ;  Dudley,  McKinley,  Bailey,  and 
similar  names  occur  with  frequency  in  Mr.  Garland's 
biography,  as  Ripley,  Gilman,  and  McLane  occur  in 
his  stories.  He  has  not  omitted  the  Indian,  fast  van 
ishing  before  the  march  of  the  Caucasian,  nor  the 
Norse,  the  immigrant  infusion.  But,  in  general,  his 
own  history  and  that  of  his  fictive  men  and  women 
belong  to  communities  settled  by  New  Englanders. 

Life  on  the  farm  in  Wisconsin  and  later  in  Iowa, 
whither  the  family  moved  in  1868,  was  a  mingled  grind 
and  joy  to  Hamlin;  he  rose  at  five  o'clock  to  help 
with  the  milking  of  the  cows  and  currying  of  the 
horses ;  in  his  eighth  year  he  took  part  in  haying  and 


HAMLIN  GARLAND  185 

husking,  at  ten  he  drove  a  plow.  He  has  never  for 
gotten  the  straining  of  his  tendons  as  his  feet  sank  in 
the  upturned  loam,  nor  the  rawness  of  his  arms  from 
binding  grain,  nor  the  callous  of  his  hands  from  corn 
"shucking,"  nor  the  muck  of  the  barnyard  where  he 
saw  to  the  needs  of  the  cattle.  Neither  has  he  for 
gotten  the  sunlight  on  the  upland,  the  calls  of  the  for 
est,  the  community  life  expressing  itself  in  quilting 
bees  and  barn  raisings,  the  groups  around  the  fireside 
on  winter  evenings,  the  excitement  of  visitin'  and 
goin'  to  the  circus. 

Appreciative  of  a  bracing  fall  morning,  he  writes  in 
A  Son  of  the  Middle  Border:  "The  frost  lay  white 
on  every  surface,  the  frozen  ground  rang  like  iron 
under  the  steel-shod  feet  of  the  horses,  and  the  breath 
of  the  men  rose  up  in  little  white  puffs  of  steam." 
Exemplifying  a  boy's  hardships,  he  writes  of  milking: 
"We  all  hated  it.  We  saw  no  poetry  in  it.  We  hated 
it  in  summer  when  the  mosquitoes  bit  and  the  cows 
slashed  us  with  their  tails,  and  we  hated  it  still  more 
in  the  winter  time  when  they  stood  in  crowded  mal 
odorous  stalls." 

There  were  few  books  in  Hamlin  Garland's  early 
home:  the  Bible  and  an  agricultural  report;  later, 
Mother  Goose,  Aladdin  and  His  Wonderful  Lamp,  and 
Beauty  and  the  Beast.  After  the  family  moved  to 
Mitchell  County,  where  the  boy  knew  the  "poetry  of 
the  unplowed  spaces,"  he  started  to  school  and  got  a 
taste  of  literature  from  McGuffey's  Readers.  Through 


1 86        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

these,  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Scott,  Byron, 
Southey  and  other  poets;  through  their  sonorous 
rhythm  he  was  fired  to  be  an  orator.  Like  most  other 
story  writers  of  the  present  day,  he  found  out  also, 
around  the  age  of  ten  or  eleven,  the  joy  to  be  extracted 
from  Beadle's  Dime  Novels.  And  he  was  profoundly 
interested  in  The  Ho  osier  Schoolmaster  as  it  appeared 
serially.  It  was  in  school  at  Dry  Run,  not  so  far 
from  the  town  of  Osage,  that  young  Garland  made 
the  friendship  of  Burton  Babcock,  a  character  con 
tinuing  through  several  chapters  of  A  Son  of  the  Mid 
dle  Border,  as  his  counterpart,  Milton  Jennings,  occurs 
in  the  fiction  more  than  once. 

The  removal  of  the  family,  for  a  year,  to  Osage 
gave  the  boy  an  immediate  environment  better  suited 
to  his  tastes.  His  reading  expanded,  for  he  took 
omnivorous  pleasure  in  the  medley  of  morsels  chance 
provided.  He  found  joy  at  the  age  of  fifteen  in 
Paradise  Lost,  though  he  implies  it  was  largely  in  the 
cursing  passages.  In  Osage  it  was  that  he  heard  a 
sermon  which,  because  of  a  climactic  passage  on 
beauty,  opened  his  eyes  to  the  world  of  art. 

All  this  time  he  was  a  day  laborer  for  his  father, 
harvesting  and  binding  grain.  With  his  wages  he  was 
able  to  enter  the  Cedar  Valley  Seminary,  where  he 
took  the  complete  course  despite  the  fact  that  his 
father's  return  to  the  farm  meant  a  harder  struggle 
for  him  to  do  so.  He  and  a  friend  rented  a  room  and 
did  their  own  cooking.  He  was  determined  to  get 


HAMLIN  GARLAND  187. 

away  from  the  farm,  resenting  "the  dung  fork,  the 
smell  of  manure  and  greasy  clothing."  In  these  forma 
tive  years  he  was  influenced  by  the  swing  of  Joaquin 
Miller's  verse,  and  primarily  by  William  Dean 
Howells's  The  Undiscovered  Country.  From  that 
time,  1879  or  1880,  the  love  of  realism  grew  in  his 

heart. 

In  1880  Richard  Garland's  pioneer  spirit  urged  him 
to  the  land  of  the  Dakotas,  where,  at  Ordway,  he 
took  up  a  homestead.     Hamlin,  having  finished  the 
Seminary  course,  set  out  to  look  for  a  school.     But 
once  on  the  road  the  boy  was  drawn,  by  the  love 
of   exploration  and  adventure,   through  the  Middle 
Western  States  even  to  the  spending  of  his  last  dollar. 
He  took  up  carpentering  as  a  means  of  livelihood; 
then  lured  by  the  call  of  the  East  he  fared  forth,  this 
time  with  his  brother  Frank,  to  Boston.    After  seeing 
the  homes  of  American  authors  in  and  around  Cam 
bridge,  he  continued  to  the  White  Mountains,  then 
to  New  York  and  Washington.     In  the  fall,  he  went 
back  to  the  West  and  taught  for  one  year  in  Grundy 
County,  Illinois.     Then,  in  the  spring  of   1883,  he 
staked  a  claim  in  Dakota,  which  he  held  down  through 
the  succeeding  winter  of  blizzards  and  cold  at  forty 
below.     The  next  year,  he  mortgaged  his  claim  and 
set  his  face  again  to  the  East. 

In  Boston  he  went  about  a  systematic  and  compre 
hensive  course  of  reading,  possible  through  the  facil 
ities  of  the  public  library.  He  read  English  literature, 


i88        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

he  read  the  evolutionists,  and  he  read  the  sociologists. 
He  became  interested  in  the  theories  of  Henry  George. 
He  rejoiced  to  be  in  the  vicinity  of  Holmes,  Lowell 
and  Howells.  So  greatly  did  the  city  exercise  its 
fascination  for  him  that  after  reading  fourteen  hours 
a  day  without  proper  physical  nourishment  and  later 
standing  in  the  balcony  of  the  theater  where  Edwin 
Booth  played,  he  crystallized  the  more  solidly  his 
determination  to  make  a  place  for  himself.  Through 
the  first  work  of  his  pen,  lectures  on  American  litera 
ture  and  Booth's  acting,  he  obtained  a  place  in  Moses 
True  Brown's  School  of  Oratory.  He  was  there  until 
1891,  when  he  definitely  gave  up  teaching.  It  is  sig 
nificant  that  Boston  did  not  fire  his  imagination.  His 
first  writing  of  any  moment  was  the  description  of 
an  Iowa  corn  husking,  inspired  by  hearing  a  coal 
shovel  scraping  outside  his  window.  He  put  into  The 
Western  Corn  Husking  the  feelings  of  the  man  who 
had  been  there  and  who  reported  faithfully  what  he 
saw  and  knew.  With  the  twenty-five  dollars  The  New 
American  Magazine  paid  him  for  this  story  he  bought 
his  mother  a  silk  dress  and  his  father  The  Memoirs 
of  General  Grant. 

His  first  visit  home,  in  1887,  brought  back  poig 
nantly  to  him  the  "pungent  realities  of  the  streamless 
plain."  "Each  moment  was  a  revelation  of  new  ugli 
ness  as  well  as  of  remembered  beauties."  But  he  did 
not  know  then  that  he  had  found  his  theme.  He 
returned  to  farm  work  and  saw  new  meaning  in  the 


HAMLIN  GARLAND  189 

'details  forced  upon  his  attention:  the  calloused  hands, 
the  swollen  muscles,  the  grimy  sweat.  Perhaps  he 
dimly  apprehended  that  no  exaltation  of  such  toil,  no 
romantic  poetizings  about  the  dignity  of  such  labor 
could  serve  beauty;  he  knew  it  could  not  serve  truth. 
His  feelings  at  this  epoch  find  parallel  in  those  of 
Edwin  Markham,  who  looked  at  The  Man  with  the 
Hoe  and  flung  the  famous  challenge  to  the  world: 
"Whose  breath  blew  out  the  light  within  his  brain?" 
He  wrote  to  his  friend  Joseph  Kirkland,  whose  reply 
set  him  thinking.  "You're  the  first  actual  farmer  in 
American  fiction,— now  tell  the  truth  about  it." 

He  found  himself  again  in  Boston,  with  his  literary 
concepts  taking  shape,  and  as  soon  as  he  was  estab 
lished  he  wrote  fast  and  incessantly.     At  first,  the 
stories  all  came  back;  then,  as  now,  the  editors  wanted 
something  charming  and  humorous  and  uplifting.   But 
he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  tell  the  truth  about  the 
farm.    "I  have  lived  the  life  and  I  know  that  farming 
is  not  entirely  made  up  of  berrying,  tossing  the  new- 
mown  hay  and  singing  The  Old  Oaken  Bucket  on  the 
porch  in  the  moonlight."  .  .  .  "The  grime  and  the 
mud  and  the  sweat  and  the  dust  exist.     They  still 
form  a  large  part  of  life  on  the  farm,  and  I  intend 
that  they  shall  go  into  my  stories  in  their  proper 
proportions."     Trying   seriously   to   understand 
realistic  school  of  fiction— knowing  it  to  be  his  own- 
he  read  Howells,  who  was  now  his  friend,  and  Henry 
James  and  the   European   realists.     He   met   Alice 


190        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Brown,  Louise  Imogene  Guiney,  Mary  Wilkins;  he 
came  under  the  spell  of  James  Herne,  who  wrote 
Shore  Acres,  and  in  whose  company  Frank  Garland 
was  acting. 

After  a  second  visit  to  his  old  home  he  was  con 
firmed  in  his  l 'sorrowful  notions"  of  life  on  the  plain 
and  resumed  his  writing  with  the  full  intention  of 
telling  the  truth  about  the  western  farm.  A  Prairie 
Heroine  sent  to  The  Arena  drew  a  check  for  one  hun 
dred  dollars  and  a  statement  from  the  editor,  B.  O. 
Flower,  that  he  wanted  more  of  the  same  sort  of 
thing.  A  Spring  Romance  was  bought  by  The  Cen 
tury  and  other  stories  found  acceptance.  His  first 
volume,  Main-Travelled  Roads,  was  published  in  1891, 
followed  by  Prairie  Folks  (1892)  and  Other  Main- 
Travelled  Roads,  1892.  It  is  to  be  remembered,  how 
ever,  that  in  Main-Travelled  Roads  and  Other  Main- 
Travelled  Roads  (definitive  edition)  the  reader  will 
find — according  to  the  author's  own  statement — all 
the  short  stories  which  came  from  his  pen  between 
1887  and  1889.  I*1  the  definitive  edition  he  says, 
"Though  conditions  have  changed  since  that  time,  yet 
for  the  hired  man  and  the  renter  farm  life  in  the  West 
is  still  a  stern  round  of  drudgery."  He  presents  that 
life  not  as  the  summer  boarder  sees  it,  but  as  the 
farmer  endures  it.  And  in  another  place  he  has  stated 
that  in  answer  to  criticism  on  his  portrayal  of  farm 
life,  he  said,  "A  proper  proportion  of  the  sweat,  flies, 
heat,  dirt  and  drudgery  of  it  all  shall  go  in."  And 


HAMLIN  GARLAND  191 

it  is  there.  He  discovered,  however  from  the  criticism 
of  Howells,  Matthews  and  Stedman  that  to  find  accept 
ance  he  must  balance  Significance  and  Beauty.  Hence, 
the  aesthetic  came  to  assume  a  greater  part  than  the 
didactic ;  the  artist  to  correct  the  preacher. 

These  three  volumes  are,  by  general  verdict,  the 
best  of  Mr.  Garland's  books.  His  first  long  novel, 
'A  Spoil  of  Office  (1892),  he  wrote  after  revisiting  the 
West  for  renewed  observation;  the  most  popular  of 
his  long  stories,  Rose  of  Butchers  Coolly,  appeared  in 
1895.  A  steady  stream  has  poured  from  his  pen, 
including  reminiscence  (Boy  Life  on  the  Prairie), 
poems  (Prairie  Songs),  essays  (Crumbling  Idols),  and 
realistic  novels,  among  which  are  Cavanagh,  Forest 
Ranger  and  Money  Magic. 

In  1892  Mr.  Garland  left  Boston  for  New  York. 
In  1893  he  visited  Chicago  and  the  World's  Fair  in 
company  with  his  parents  and  in  the  same  fall  bought 
a  home  at  West  Salem.  Later  he  returned  to  New 
York,  where  he  now  lives.  He  was  married  in  1899 
to  Miss  Zulima  Taft,  sister  of  Lorado  Taft,  the 
sculptor. 

Main-Travelled  Roads  includes  two  stories  which 
had  gone  from  publisher  to  publisher  without  finding 
acceptance:  Up  the  Coule  and  A  Branch  Road.  The 
first  of  these  is  the  best  example  of  unflinching  realism 
produced  in  its  decade.  It  also  illustrates,  as  may  be 
seen  by  comparison  with  the  actual  life  reflected,  the 
approved  method  of  the  realist  artist.  Howard  Me- 


192        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Lane  visits  his  old  home  after  he  has  found  success 
as  an  actor  (Howard  is  patently  a  composite  of  Ham- 
lin  and  Frank,  as  they  appear  in  A  Son  of  the  Middle 
Border)  ;  Howard  takes  a  silk  dress  to  his  mother  and 
a  book  of  memoirs  to  his  brother.  (So  did  Mr.  Gar 
land  take  the  dress  to  his  mother  and  the  book  to  his 
father)  ;  Howard  worked  with  the  farm  hands  (so 
did  Mr.  Garland,  on  his  first  return)  ;  Howard  loathed 
the  barnyard  (so  did  Mr.  Garland).  See  the  scene 
from  Howard's  angle:  "How  wretchedly  familiar  it 
all  was!  The  miry  cow-yard,  with  the  hollow  tram 
pled  out  around  the  horse-trough,  the  disconsolate  hens 
standing  under  the  wagons  and  sheds,  a  pig  wal 
lowing  across  the  sty,  and  for  atmosphere  the  deso 
late,  falling  rain."  Making  his  way  around  the  periph 
ery  of  the  yard,  clinging  to  the  fence,  he  comes  upon 
the  barn,  where  Grant  is  mending  a  harness. 
"The  old  man  was  holding  the  trace  in  his  hard  brown 
hands;  the  boy  was  lying  on  a  wisp  of  hay.  It  was 
a  small  barn,  and  poor  at  that.  There  was  a  bad 
smell,  as  of  dead  rats,  about  it,  and  the  rain  fell 
through  the  shingles  here  and  there" — ( Up  the  Coule). 
See  it  from  Mr.  Garland's  angle:  "Clearing  out  from 
behind  the  animals  was  one  of  our  never  ending  jobs, 
and  hauling  the  compost  out  on  the  fields  was  one  of 
the  tasks  which,  as  my  father  grimly  said,  'We  always 
put  off  till  it  rains  so  hard  we  can't  work  out  of 
doors.'  This  was  no  joke  to  us,  for  not  only  did  we 
work  out  of  doors,  we  worked  while  standing  ankle- 


HAMLIN  GARLAND  193 

deep  in  the  slime  of  the  yard,  getting  full  benefit  of 
the  drizzle."  And  on  his  return  (the  return  compar 
able  to  Howard  Grant's),  he  says,  "there  is  no  escape 
even  on  a  modern  'model  farm'  from  the  odor  of  the 
barn"— (A  Son  of  the  Middle  Border). 

Further  parallels  might  be  cited,  but  it  is  needless 
to  continue  checking  off  details :  any  one  may  do  so  by 
comparing  Mr.  Garland's  visit  with  that  of  Howard. 
By  way  of  a  further  comment  on  the  realistic  method, 
however,  it  will  be  observed  that  as  Howard  is  a  com 
posite  of  Hamlin  and  Frank,  so  Grant  in  the  fictive 
story  represents  the  father,  Richard  Garland,  of  real 
life.  This  deduction  is  not  to  be  misconstrued  that  the 
characters  or  personalities  are  copies;  it  is  drawn  to, 
illustrate  the  selective  and  combining  operations  of  the 
realist — the  methods  in  the  main  allowed  to  him  as 
an  artist. 

Take  another  story,  A  Day  of  Grace  (Other  Main- 
Travelled  Roads),  and  compare  Milton  Jennings  with 
Mr.  Garland's  friend  Burton.  In  A  Son  of  the  Middle 
Border  Hamlin  meets  Burton  one  afternoon  and  in 
quires  about  the  bulbous  contents  of  Burton's  pockets. 
He  receives  this  reply :  "  'I  went  over  to  see  Nettie. 
I  intended  to  give  her  these  apples/  he  indicated  the 
fruit  by  a  touch  on  each  pocket,  'but  when  I  got  there 
I  found  old  Bill  Watson,  dressed  to  kill  and  large  as 
life,  sitting  in  the  parlor.  I  was  so  afraid  of  his  finding 
out  what  I  had  in  my  pockets  that  I  didn't  go  in.' ' 
In  A  Day  of  Grace,  Milton  says :  "  'Well,  when  I  got 


194        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

over  there  I  found  young  Conley's  sorrel  hitched  to 
one  post  and  Walt  Brown's  gray  hitched  to  the  other. 
I  went  in  but  I  didn't  stay  long;  in  fact,  I  didn't  sit 
down.  I  was  afraid  those  infernal  apples  would  roll 
out  of  my  pockets/ ' 

Young  men,  many  of  them,  are  among  Mr.  Gar 
land's  chief  characters;  they  are  those,  with  the  girls, 
whom  the  wing  of  romance  brushes.  But  even  in 
his  stories  of  youth,  the  setting  of  real  life  is  never 
lost;  in  his  most  successful  love  stories,  the  nagging, 
the  irritation  of  everyday  life,  is  never  omitted. 
When  Lyman  Gilman  asks  for  Marietta  Bacon  (Wil 
liam  Bacon's  Hired  Man,  of  Prairie  Folks,  later 
William  Bacon's  Man,  in  the  revised  edition  of  Other 
Main-Travelled  Roads),  he  meets  such  savage  response 
that,  to  save  himself,  he  knocks  Bacon  down.  Then 
he  flees  with  Marietta.  But,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
they  are  ultimately  forgiven  and  that  Mr.  Garland, 
in  learning  to  emphasize  the  aesthetic  at  the  cost  of 
the  didactic,  ends  on  the  "happy"  note,  the  reader 
knows  that  love  and  youth  have  conquered  for  only 
a  brief  space.  The  grind  of  farm  life  will  bend  and 
crush  Marietta,  coarsen  Lyman,  and  in  the  long  run 
stamp  them,  as  it  has  placed  its  die  on  Lucretia  Burns 
and  Sim  Burns.  Sim  B urns' s  Wife  (so  entitled  in 
Prairie  Folks;  Lucretia  Burns,  in  Other  Main- 
Travelled  Roads')  is  a  dirge  of  life  in  death,  the  story 
of  a  woman  of  the  farm,  cowed,  broken,  cast  down 
to  the  dust  of  despair  by  the  harshness  of  her  hus- 


HAMLIN  GARLAND  195 

band  and  the  ugly  toil  of  her  daily  routine.  Sim  is  a 
brute  because  his  share  of  existence  has  developed  his 
brute  nature.  Before  the  Low  Green  Door  (of  Way 
side  Courtships  (1897),  reprinted  in  Other  Main- 
Travelled  Roads)  is  a  black  diamond  that  flashes  som 
berly  the  life,  through  one  death  bed  scene,  of  an  older 
and  more  pathetic  figure.  Her  "poor,  faithful  hands, 
hacked  and  knotted  and  worn  by  thirty  years  of  cease 
less  daily  toil  .  .  .  lay  there  motionless  upon  the 
coverlet."  Martha,  the  visitor,  asks  her  if  she  has 
found  no  compensation;  if  she  is  sorry  she  has  had 
children.  "I  ain't  glad,"  she  replies.  "They'll  haf  to 
grow  old  jest  as  I  have — git  bent  and  die.  They  ain't 
be'n  much  comfort  to  me  .  .  .  ' 

Hands  have  a  powerful  meaning  for  Mr.  Garland. 
Again,  the  passage  just  cited,  has  a  parallel  more  than 
once  in  his  autobiography.  "A  twinge  of  pain  went 
through  my  heart  as  I  looked  into  their  dim  eyes  and 
studied  their  heavy  knuckles.  I  thought  of  the  hand 
of  Edwin  Booth,  of  the  flower-like  palm  of  Helena 
Modjeska,  of  the  subtle  touch  of  Inness,  and  I  said, 
'Is  it  not  time  that  the  human  hand  ceased  to  be  prima 
rily  a  bludgeon  for  hammering  a  bare  living  out  of 
the  earth  ?' " 

The  author  portrays  not  only  the  anguish  and  pathos 
of  the  women's  lives,  the  crassness  and  the  enforced 
brutality  of  the  young  men,  the  ugly  struggle  of  the 
older  men  to  survive — relieved  insufficiently  by  the 
graces  of  love  and  compassion  and  gallantry;  he 


196        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

touches  with  the  same  vivifying  effect  of  reality — 
here  synonymous  with  realism — the  country  settings, 
sports  and  pastimes.  Saturday  Night  on  the  Farm 
(Prairie  Folks)  treats  the  reader  to  the  New  Mag 
dalen,  the  drama  by  Wilkie  Collins,  as  it  was  presented 
at  the  town  hall;  then  transfers  him  in  the  company 
of  the  farm  boys  to  the  village  saloon,  and  finally 
regales  him  with  a  fight.  In  The  Sociable  at  Dudley's 
the  young  people  move  through  the  mazes  of  Weevily 
Wheat ;  Daddy  Deering  has  for  hero  the  violinist  who 
rasps  out  directions  for  the  dance. 

Frequently  the  author  sets  the  action  of  his  tales  in 
the  church,  "meeting  house."  In  Elder  Pill,  Preacher 
(Prairie  Folks)  he  presents  the  fighting  parson  admir 
ably,  then  having  gained  the  reader's  sympathy  for 
Elder  Pill,  he  allows  the  reader  to  see  that  exhorter  in 
most  insincere  wind-bag  flights  of  oratory;  but  he 
justifies  his  first  impression,  for  the  Elder  meets  with 
enlightenment,  turns  right  about  face  and  humbly  goes 
after  education.  The  effect  of  exhorters  upon  sensi 
tive  souls  is  set  forth  by  Mr.  Garland  without  mincing 
words.  The  women  cry  out,  fall  down,  roll  on  the 
ground,  stiffen,  and  gasp  as  they  suffer  catalepsy 
induced  by  the  preacher's  explosive  ranting  and  mad 
cavorting  among  the  moaning  audience. 

In  his  brighter  moments,  Mr.  Garland  is  optimistic. 
"I  admit,"  he  closes  his  preface  to  the  definitive  edi 
tion  of  Other  Main-Travelled  Roads  (1913),  "youth 
and  love  are  able  to  transform  a  bleak  prairie  into  a 


HAMLIN  GARLAND  197 

poem,  and  to  make  of  a  barbed  wire  lane  a  highway 
of  romance."  He  does  not,  however,  emphasize  the 
romance. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ?"  is  a  question 
this  author  sometimes  discusses  through  the  dialogue 
of  his  characters.  Man's  laws  are  to  blame  rather 
than  nature's  laws.  Radbourn,  who  talks  to  Lily  (Sim 
Burns' s  Wife) ,  would  abolish  all  indirect  taxes,  have 
state  control  of  privileges  when  private  ownership 
would  interfere  with  equal  rights,  and  would  destroy 
speculative  holdings.  But  it  is  more  than  conceivable 
that  Mr.  Garland's  contribution  to  solving  the  problem 
lies  in  painting  the  picture.  That  the  solution  has  not 
come  is  evidenced  by  the  latest  census  report  which 
states  that  sixty  towns  hold  one  fourth  of  the  American 
population.  The  farmer  has  learned,  as  Mr.  Garland 
learned,  that  the  life  is  hard  and  lacks  compensation; 
he  has  returned,  therefore,  to  the  city.  But  this  is 
not  "the  right  answer";  for  the  farm  cannot  be  neg 
lected.  The  wise  man  will  be  the  one  who  directs  an 
exodus  to  it  which  will  be,  somehow,  at  whatever  cost, 
unattended  by  the  discomforts,  indecencies  and  suffer 
ing  that  have  attended  the  necessary  struggles  of  all 
pioneers. 

The  salubrious  effect  of  such  realism  as  Mr.  Gar 
land's  is  the  correction  of  false  romantic  ideals,  which 
obscure  the  vision  of  the  reader  and  blind  him  to  exist 
ing  and  unhappy  conditions.  The  unhealthful  reaction 


198        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

to  such  realism  is  pessimism  and,  ultimately,  despair. 
If  men  of  long  past  cycles  had  not  fought  and  con 
quered,  we  their  descendants  would  be  sitting  to-day  in 
trees.  The  conquering  spirit  is  the  weapon.  Mean 
time,  men  must  work — and  women;  for  they  have 
not  time  to  weep. 

Mr.  Garland's  works : 

Main-Travelled  Roads,  18908. 

Jason  Edwards,  1891-7. 

A  Little  Norsk,  1891. 

Prairie  Folks,  1892-8. 

A  Spoil  of  Office,  1892-7. 

A  Member  of  the  $d  House,  1892-7. 

Crumbling  Idols,  1893. 

Rose  of  Dutchers  Coolly,  1895-8. 

Wayside  Courtships,  1897. 

Ulysses  Grant  (biog.),  1898. 

Prairie  Songs,  1894. 

The  Spirit  of  Sweetwater,  1898. 

The  Eagle's  Heart,  1900. 

Her  Mountain  Lover,  1901. 

The  Captain  of  the  Gray  Horse  Troop,  1902. 

Hesper,  1903. 

Light  of  the  Star,  1904. 

The  Tyranny  of  the  Dark,  1905. 

The  Long  Trail,  1907. 

Money  Magic,  1907. 

Boy  Life  on  the  Prairie,  1907. 


HAMLIN  GARLAND  199 

The  Shadow  World,  1908. 
Cavanagh,  Forest  Ranger,  1909. 
Victor  Olnee's  Discipline,  1911. 
Other  Main-Travelled  Roads,  1913. 
A  Son  of  the  Middle  Border,  1917. 


CHAPTER  XII 


ON  December  2,  1897,  the  S.  S.  McClure  Com 
pany  wrote  acceptance  of  a  story,  The  Miracle 
of   Lava    Canon.      The    letter    addressed    to 
W.  S.  Porter,  Austin,  Texas,  is  the  first  record  of  a 
short-story  accepted  from  the  pen  of  the  man  now 
known  as  O.  Henry. 

From  April  25,  1898,  to  July  24,  1901,  William 
Sydney  Porter  was  in  prison,  whence  he  emerged  a 
craftsman  in  the  art  of  narrative.  In  the  decade  be 
fore  his  death,  June  5,  1910,  he  wrote  two  hundred 
and  fifty  short-stories,  ten  volumes  of  which  were 
published  in  the  year  1904  to  1910. 

The  name  of  O.  Henry  is  indissolubly  associated 
with  the  short-story.  He  is  the  most  popular  of  Amer 
ican  story  writers;  more  than  two  million  sets  of  his 
works  have  been  sold  and  there  is  no  diminution  in 
the  sales.  His  books  have  appeared  in  London  in 
shilling  editions  and  de  luxe  editions;  in  New  York, 
for  fifty  cents  the  volume  and  five  hundred  dollars  the 
set.  He  has  been  translated  into  a  number  of  Euro 
pean  languages;  it  is  only  a  matter  of  time  until  he 

200 


"O.  HENRY"  201 

will  be  translated  into  all.  To  his  memory  rise  tab 
lets,  a  hotel  bearing  his  name,  and  a  prize  for  the  best 
short-story  annually  produced  in  America.*  If  he 
knows,  he  must  delight  in  the  assortment  He  was 
suggested  for  the  Hall  of  Fame  just  as  the  necessary 
ten  years  since  his  death  had  rounded  to  completion. 

What  are  the  open  secrets  of  his  success  and  his  pop 
ularity?  The  successful  story  writer — emphasis  on 
story — will  be  popular.  For  narrative  is  of  all  literary 
types  the  most  entertaining  to  the  greatest  number. 
O.  Henry  conveyed  the  greatest  enjoyment  in  a  given 
space.  This  ability  means  that  he  infused  into  every 
sentence  the  spirit  of  life.  No  dead  matter  cumbers 
his  pages.  His  narrative  is  neither  bare,  unadorned 
plot,  nor  plot  padded  with  flabbiness  of  faded  philoso 
phy,  lumpy  cushions  of  exposition  or  fatty  flesh  of 
description.  His  native  ability  in  selection  and  sug 
gestion  and  his  sense  of  proportion  he  brought  to  effi 
ciency  through  mastery  of  technique.  Out  of  his  dis 
criminating  selection  comes  novelty  of  subject  and 
treatment ;  out  of  his  sense  of  proportion  comes  perfect 
adjustment  of  parts.  His  power  of  suggestion  en 
abled  him  to  choose  words  and  to  join  them  in  sen 
tences  which  carry  electric  currents.  His  stories  shock 
through  their  combination  of  currents,  another  way  of 
affirming  that  he  mastered  the  art  of  surprise. 

In  so  far  as  the  artist  touches  the  heart  of  one  per 
son,  so  far  he  is  an  artist.     He  succeeds  in  direct  ratio 

*  Founded  by  the  Society  of  Arts  and  Sciences. 


202        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

to  the  number  emotionally  moved.  O.  Henry  swept 
with  sure  resonance  the  master  chords;  for  he  knew 
what  makes  men  happy  and  what  makes  men  sad.  He 
used  over  and  again,  in  varying  combinations,  the 
common  denominator  of  the  greatest  appeal.  Whole 
some  laughter  and  tears  were  his  objectives.  He  re 
frained  from  attacking  subtle  shades  of  emotion  or  lit 
erary  shadows  of  passion,  as  he  refrained  from  gross 
melodrama.  He  was  endowed  with  a  unique  sense  of 
humor.  "I  am  the  only  original  dispenser  of  sun 
shine/'  he  whimsically  wrote.  And  he  acquired, 
through  attrition,  something  of  the  power  of  divine 
sympathy. 

The  artist  must  know  life  and  reflect  it  as  best  he 
may  through  the  peculiarly  tinged  lens  of  his  tempera 
ment.  Within  a  certain  area  of  middle-class  life,  O. 
Henry  was  on  familiar  terms  with  many  types  of  hu 
manity.  This  area  is  bounded  on  the  West  by  his 
cowboys  and  ranches,  on  the  East  by  his  shop-girls 
and  Bagdad-by-the-Subway,  on  the  South  by  his  col 
onels  and  the  domain  of  the  Gentle  Grafter.  He  kept 
close  to  the  scenes  and  lives  with  which  he  had  first 
hand  acquaintance.  His  work,  therefore,  has  conti 
nuity  as  his  own  life  had  it.  Stephen  Leacock  has  re 
minded  us,  "It  is  an  error  of  the  grossest  kind  to  say 
that  O.  Henry's  work  is  not  sustained.  In  reality  his 
canvas  is  vast.  His  New  York  stories,  like  those  of 
Central  America  or  of  the  West,  form  one  great  pic 
ture  as  gloriously  comprehensive  in  its  scope  as  the 


"O.  HENRY"  203 

lengthiest  novel  of  a  Dickens  or  the  canvas  of  a  Da 
Vinci." 

Of  his  stories,  fifteen  have  settings  in  Central  and 
South  America,  which  he  had  visited ;  twenty-one  have 
for  various  backgrounds  southern  states  he  knew; 
forty  are  set  on  the  wide  stage  of  Texas,  where  he  lived 
a  number  of  years;  fifty  or  more  in  New  York,  his 
adopted  home  and  the  one  that  held  for  him  the  great 
est  attraction.  He  was  never  in  England,  and  only 
his  earliest  story  preserved,  the  slap-stick  burlesque, 
Lord  Oakhurst's  Curse,  pretends  to  an  English  setting. 
He  was  never  in  France,  and  (besides  the  farcical 
Tracked  to  Doom,  which  parodies  Le  Cocq)  only 
Roads  of  Destiny,  influenced  by  Stevenson's  Sire  de 
Maletroit's  Door,  has  there  its  mise  en  scene. 

All  great  artists  have  been  democratic.  O.  Henry 
was  the  first  of  short-story  fabricants  never  to  conde 
scend  by  word  or  feeling  to  any  of  his  characters.  His 
shop-girl  is  an  entity,  not  less  than  the  grafter,  the 
grafter  not  less  than  the  aristocrat  colonel.  "Most 
literary  men,"  said  Francis  Hackett  of  The  Chicago 
Evening  Post,  "discuss  those  who  are  not  'elite'  as  a 
physician  would  discuss  a  case — scientifically,  often 
humanly,  interested,  but  always  with  a  strong  sense 
of  the  case's  defects  and  deficiencies.  To  O.  Henry, 
on  the  contrary,  the  clerk  is  neither  abnormal  nor  sub 
normal.  He  writes  of  him  without  patronizing  him." 
With  Maupassant,  he  treats  his  characters  objectively; 
and  if  his  own  cynicism  intrudes,  it  is  softened  with 


204        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

the  kindliest  humor,  not  sharpened  by  the  French  au 
thor's  sneer. 

His  life  has  been  called  drab.  Drab  it  was,  placed 
alongside  the  blue  and  purple  thrills  of  Jack  London's 
vivid  career  or  the  symphonic  colors  of  R.  H.  D.'s 
orchestrated  experiences.  But  he  rounded  many  west 
ern  islands  and  traveled  far  in  the  realms  of  gold. 

His  work  was  determined  by  his  incursions  into  the 
land  of  fancy  as  it  was  by  his  outward  contacts.  From 
his  boyhood  love  for  the  dime  novel  and  from  his 
acquaintance  with  Jimmie  Connors  emerged  the  Re 
trieved  Reformation  of  Jimmy  Valentine.  From  the 
later  exorcism  of  ghost  stories,  he  conjured  out  of  the 
fourth  dimension  The  Furnished  Room,  redolent  of 
mignonette.  From  the  treasure  of  the  Arabian  Nights 
he  drew  titles — The  Caliph  and  the  Cad,  the  Bird  of 
Bagdad — and  his  favorite  names  for  New  York,  The 
City  of  too  Many  Caliphs  and  Bagdad-by-the-Sub- 
way,  as  well  as  an  atmosphere  through  which  he  viewed 
its  passing  show.  In  the  days  of  his  pharmacal  re 
searches  he  probably  came  across  the  name  of  the 
French  chemist,  Etienne-Ossian  Henry,  and  later  bor 
rowed  its  abbreviated  form  (perhaps  by  unconscious 
trick  of  memory)  for  his  pen-name.  Certainly  he  in 
troduced  his  pharmaceutical  knowledge  into  a  number 
of  tales,  up  to  the  final,  Let  Me  Feel  Your  Pulse. 
Upon  his  services  as  draftsman  depended  Georgia's 
Ruling,  Wit  dies3  Loaves,  and  Buried  Treasure. 


"O.  HENRY"  205 

Friends  in  San  Rosario,  alone,  would  testify  that  he 
had  been  teller  or  bookkeeper  in  a  bank. 

In  O.  Henry  existed  th"  nice  balance  of  conditions 
essential  to  success.  His  lather  gave  up  doctoring  to 
become  an  inventor;  his  mother  painted  pictures  and 
wrote  verse.  He  practised  story-telling  at  school;  his 
ears  and  eyes  were  wide  open;  he  read  with  avidity. 
Out  of  various  environments  he  gathered  much;  he 
suffered,  and  then  he  wrote. 

William  Sidney  Porter  (Sydney,  later)  was  born  in 
Greensboro,  North  Carolina,  September  n,  1862. 
There  in  a  town  of  2,500  people  he  lived  to  the  age  of 
nineteen.  His  early  memories  were  those  of  lying  on 
the  floor  of  the  barn  where  his  father  worked  at  the 
problem  of  perpetual  motion;  of  playing  at  Ku-Klux 
and  Indian  with  his  friend,  Tom  Tate;  of  roaming 
about,  fishing  and  hunting,  leaving  usually  to  the  other 
fellow  the  angling  and  the  shooting.  He  learned  to 
box,  fence  and  play  chess ;  he  dreamed  and  read.  Ac 
cording  to  his  friend  Tom,  the  boys  owned  at  the  age 
of  seven  or  eight  a  collection  of  George  Munro's  dime 
novels  second  only  to  the  array  on  a  cigar  stand. 

The  only  schooling  Will  Porter  had  was  at  the 
hands  of  his  Aunt  Evelina.  She  seems  to  have  been 
a  rare  teacher,  one  who  loved  literature  and  fostered 
its  spirit  among  her  charges.  Between  1874  and  1883, 
Willie  Porter  read  more  than  in  all  the  years  after 
ward,  and  he  read — he  said — nothing  but  the  classics. 


206        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

On  Friday  nights  Miss  Lina  gathered  the  students 
about  her  fire,  where  they  roasted  chestnuts  and  told 
stories  on  the  collaborative  plan.  He  was  her  best 
story-teller,  as  he  was  her  best  all-round  pupil  and 
artist.  His  drawings,  even  then  bearing  evidence  of 
his  kinship  to  Worth,  the  cartoonist,  she  used  for 
models. 

About  1877  Will  Porter  began  working  in  his  Uncle 
Clark  Porter's  drugstore,  and  there  he  remained  until 
1882.  The  chief  assets  to  his  career  from  that  expe 
rience  were,  first,  much  reading  from  the  novelists — 
Dickens,  Thackeray,  Reade,  Lytton,  Collins,  Hugo, 
and  Dumas;  second,  a  practical  knowledge  of  phar 
macy,  which  made  endurable  the  after  years  in  Colum 
bus  and  which  he  also  used  in  his  stories.  "A  short 
examination  of  his  work  would  show  that  he  knew  the 
names  of  about  seventeen  drugs,"  sums  up  Stephen 
Leacock,  "and  was  able  to  describe  the  rolling  of  pills 
with  the  life-like  accuracy  of  one  who  has  rolled  them." 
But  whatever  his  knowledge  compassed,  it  served  him 
at  need.  Third,  he  improved  his  skill  in  drawing,  by 
sketching  the  customers  and  characters  who  visited  the 
store.  Dr.  C.  Alphonso  Smith,  O.  Henry's  friend  and 
biographer,  says :  "The  skill  of  the  story-teller  that 
was  to  be  is  seen  to  better  advantage  in  his  pictures 
of  groups  than  in  his  pictures  of  individuals.  .  .  .  They 
gave  room  for  a  sort  of  collective  interpretation  which 
seems  to  me  very  closely  related  to  the  plots  of  his 
short  stories.  There  is  the  same  selection  of  a  central 


"O.  HENRY"  207 

theme,  the  same  saturation  with  a  controlling  idea,  the 
same  careful  choice  of  contributory  details,  the  same 
rejection  of  non-essentials,  and  the  same  ability  to  fuse 
both  theme  and  details  into  a  single  totality  of  effect." 

Because  of  close  confinement  and  the  fear  of  tuber 
culosis — his  mother  had  died  at  the  age  of 'thirty-two, 
when  he  was  only  three  years  old — he  began  to  rebel  at 
the  prospect  of  life  spent  further  in  the  store.  In 
March,  1882,  he  left  for  Texas  with  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
Hall,  who  were  going  out  to  visit  their  son,  "Red," 
or  Jesse  Lee  Hall.  So  closed  the  first  epoch  of  Will 
Porter's  life. 

In  1882,  on  the  ranch  superintended  by  Lee  Hall, 
and  in  his  excursions  from  it,  the  boy  from  Carolina 
saw  something  of  the  struggle  between  legitimate  own 
ers  and  cattle  thieves.  Texas  and  Hall  opened  to  him 
the  world  of  romance.  His  first  story,  mentioned 
above  and  afterwards  revised  as  An  Afternoon  Mir 
acle,  reveals  that  the  possibilities  of  the  ranch  paved 
the  way  for  his  success  in  fiction.  Reminiscent  of  this 
period  are  The  Higher  Abdication,  Hygeia  at  the 
Solito,  The  Missing  Chord,  The  Last  of  the  Trouba 
dours,  Madame  Bo-Peep  of  the  Ranches,  and  other 
tales,  all  flavored  with  what  he  himself  once  called 
"the  elusive  tincture  of  affairs, "  as  he  knew  them  in 
La  Salle  County.  It  is  a  matter  of  record  that  he  was 
writing  in  1882  and  1883  stories  which  in  the  opinion 
of  his  friend,  Mrs.  Hall,  equalled  those  of  Rider  Hag 
gard  ;  but  these  he  destroyed.  He  continued  his  read- 


208        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

ing,  branching  out  into  history,  biography  and  science. 
Tennyson  was  his  favorite  poet  and  Webster's  Un 
abridged  Dictionary  his  constant,  if  not  pocket,  com 
panion.  He  studied  French  and  German,  it  is  to  be 
suspected  to  their  ultimate  sole  availability  for  humor 
ous  effect.  "  'Tiens !'  shouts  the  Gray  Wolf,  now  mad 
dened  to  desperation,  and  drawing  his  gleaming  knife, 
'Voila !  Canaille !  Tout  le  monde,  carte  blanche  enbon- 
point  sauve  qui  peut  entre  nous  revenez  nous  a  nous 
moutons!'"  (Tracked  to  Doom).  He  probably 
achieved  proficiency  in  Spanish. 

In  March,  1884,  he  went  to  Austin,  where  he  lived 
with  the  ex-Carolinian,  Joe  Harrell,  and  became  as 
one  of  the  family.  Arthur  W.  Page  observes  that  it 
was  his  ironical  fate  to  be  a  dreamer  and  yet  to  be 
harnessed  to  tasks  that  brought  his  head  from  the 
clouds  to  the  commonplaces  of  the  store  and  the  street. 
But  if  his  successive  occupations  are  responsible  in 
part  for  his  breadth  of  sympathy,  therein  lies  compen 
sation.  He  was  clerk  in  a  tobacco  store,  he  was  book 
keeper,  draftsman,  singer  in  church  choirs,  member  of 
a  military  company,  and  cartoonist  during  the  years 
in  Austin.  And  all  the  while  he  lived  in  an  atmosphere 
of  adventure  that  was  the  product  of  his  own  imagina 
tion. 

In  1884  he  worked  for  a  real  estate  firm.  From 
January,  1887,  to  January,  1891,  he  held  the  position 
in  the  General  Land  Office  as  Assistant  Compiling 
Draftsman.  On  July  5,  1887,  ne  niarried  Athol  Roach, 


"O.  HENRY"  209 

and  it  is  significant  that  this  is  the  year  he  began  to 
rely  upon  his  pen  as  an  additional  source  of  income. 
According  to  R.  H.  Davis  of  Munsey's  Magazine,  who 
met  him  years  later,  O.  Henry  was  "buoyant  and  lazy 
in  prosperity,  depressed  and  productive  in  adversity." 
It  is  probable  at  this  time  in  Austin — years  on  which 
he  looked  back  afterward  as  the  happiest  of  his  life — 
that  he  was  driven  to  write  by  the  mere  need  for  more 
money.  He  was  happy  in  his  home  and  wife  and,  after 
she  came,  his  daughter  Margaret.  Georgia's  Ruling, 
written  in  prison  and  published  in  The  Outlook,  June 
30,  1900,  may  be  viewed  as  the  effort  of  one  suffering 
from  nostalgia  to  comfort  himself  with  pictures  of  the 
past.  Witches'  Loaves  (Argosy,  March,  1904),  Bu 
ried  Treasure  (Ainslee*s,  July,  1908),  Bexar  Script 
2692  (written  in  1894,  but  published  first  in  Rolling 
Stones) — all  witness  the  "copy"  value  of  the  Land 
Office. 

January  21,  1891,  Mr.  Porter  resigned  his  position 
as  draftsman  and  entered  the  First  National  Bank  of 
Austin  as  teller.  This  position  he  held  until  Decem 
ber,  1894,  when,  having  bought  the  printing  outfit  of 
Brann's  Iconoclast,  he  projected  The  Rolling  Stone. 
This  weekly  was  a  forerunner  of  his  methods  as  hu 
morist  and  caricaturist  in  his  later  work;  it  revealed 
to  him,  moreover,  that  he  was  fitted  to  take  up  writing 
seriously.  When  the  paper  failed — April  27,  1895 — 
he  went  to  Houston.  There  he  held  a  position  on  The 


2io        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Daily  Post.  His  first  column  appeared  October  18, 
his  last  on  June  22,  1896. 

What  his  biographer  terms  the  shadowed  years  were 
close  upon  him.  Indictments  against  Mr.  Porter  sum 
moned  him  from  Houston  in  1896;  he  was  charged 
with  embezzling  funds  from  the  Bank  of  Austin.  One 
item  read,  "On  November  12,  1895,  $299.60."  Dr. 
Smith  has  pointed  out,  "Nothing  in  O.  Henry's  life 
is  better  substantiated  than  that  on  November  12,  1895, 
he  was  living  in  Houston  and  had  resigned  his  position 
in  the  Austin  bank  early  in  December,  1894."  But 
the  dates  probably  escaped  the  notice  of  O.  Henry 
himself. 

He  started  to  Austin,  but  transferred  to  the  New 
Orleans  train  and  later  sailed  for  Honduras.  In  New 
Orleans  he  remained  some  time,  either  on  his  outward 
journey  or  the  return.  Whistling  Dick's  Christmas 
Stocking  (McClure's,  December,  1899),  The  Renais 
sance  of  Charleroi,  Phoebe,  Blind  Man's  Holiday,  and 
Cherchez  La  Femme  reflect  the  suburban  setting  and 
the  heart  of  the  old  French  town.  On  the  way  to 
Honduras  he  fell  in  with  Al  Jennings,  whose  connec 
tion  with  O.  Henry  has  since  received  exploitation  in 
the  daily  papers  and  made  familiar  many  details  of 
their  common  experiences. 

"Latin  America  fascinated  O.  Henry,"  says  Stephen 
Leacock.  "The  languor  of  the  tropics ;  the  sunlit  seas 
with  their  open  bays  and  broad,  sanded  beaches,  with 
green  palms  nodding  on  the  slopes  above  white  painted 


"O.  HENRY"  211 

steamers  lazily  at  anchor — quaint  Spanish  towns,  with 
adobe  houses  and  wide  squares,  sunk  in  their  noon-day 
sleep — beautiful  sefioritas  drowsing  away  the  after 
noon  in  hammocks;  the  tinkling  of  the  mule  bells  on 
the  mountain  track  above  the  town — the  cries  of  un 
known  birds  issuing  from  the  dense  green  of  the  un 
broken  jungle — and  at  night,  in  the  soft  darkness,  the 
low  murmur  of  the  guitar,  soft  thrumming  with  the 
voice  of  love — these  are  the  sights  and  sounds  of 
O.  Henry's  Central  America/*  And  he  concludes, 
"Whether  this  is  the  'real  Central  America'  or  not  is 
of  no  consequence.  It  probably  is  not." 

Meantime,  Mrs.  Porter,  back  at  home,  was  ill.  When 
her  husband  heard  of  her  failing  health,  he  returned. 
He  arrived  in  Austin  February,  1897,  and  went  free 
under  doubled  bond  until  Federal  Court  convened. 
Mrs.  Porter  died  July  25,  1897.  By  singular  irony, 
his  first  published  sketch,  The  Final  Triumph,  appeared 
in  Truth  the  next  month. 

When  Will  Porter  was  tried,  he  was  convicted 
largely  because  he  had  fled  from  justice  and  was  a 
fugitive  from  July,  1896,  to  February,  1897.  His 
friends  have  always  believed  him  innocent  of  the  charge 
against  him.  He  himself  behaved  apathetically,  but 
he  wrote  his  mother-in-law — she  and  Mr.  Roach  re 
mained  his  staunch  friends — "I  am  absolutely  innocent 
of  wrong-doing  in  the  bank  matter,  except  so  far  as 
foolishly  keeping  a  position  that  I  could  not  success 
fully  fill." 


212        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

He  entered  the  penitentiary  at  Columbus,  Ohio, 
April  25,  1898.  Humiliated,  he  was  none  the  less 
obedient  to  rules  and  soon  found  himself  in  a  trusted 
position.  Except  that  he  was  detained,  he  was  as  free 
as  though  he  had  voluntarily  chosen  "the  place"  (his 
term  for  the  prison,  in  letters  to  friends)  for  his  abode. 
As  night  pharmacist,  he  did  not  sleep  in  a  cell  but  dh  a 
cot  in  the  hospital.  Later,  secretary  to  the  steward, 
he  was  free  to  walk  along  the  streets  and  the  river. 
On  his  rounds  among  the  prisoners,  he  learned  their 
life  stories.  He  heard  the  true  story  of  Jimmie  Con 
nors,  who  was  in  erroneously  on  the  specific  charge 
but  correctly  enough  in  general,  the  story  from  which 
evolved  A  Retrieved  Reformation.  He  heard  the  actual 
exploits  which  later  became  tales  of  the  Gentle  Grafter. 
Of  the  dozen  or  so  stories  written  in  prison  and  pub 
lished,  the  best  is  A  Blackjack  Bargainer,  which  ap 
peared  in  Munsey's,  August,  1901.  The  story  of 
Georgia's  Ruling  will  also  continue  to  have  admirers. 
But  at  least  one  dramatist  prefers  The  Marionettes, 
of  this  period,  to  all  O.  Henry's  stories. 

In  these  years  he  served  his  novitiate.  Some  of  his 
tales  were  published  while  he  was  yet  in  prison.  He 
sent  them  under  cover  to  New  Orleans,  whence  they 
were  remailed  to  New  York  magazines.  His  editors, 
assumed,  of  course,  that  he  was  living  in  the  Crescent 
City  and  that  the  pseudonym  of  O.  Henry  he  had 
chosen  in  Columbus  was  his  real  name.  When  he 
was  freed,  July  24,  1901,  two  years  before  his  time 


"O.  HENRY"  213 

was  up,  he  joined  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Roach  and  his  daugh 
ter  in  Pittsburg.  They  fitted  up  a  room  for  him  in 
the  hotel,  of  which  they  were  proprietors,  and  there 
he  settled  down  to  continuous  writing. 

In  1902,  Gilman  Hall  and  Richard  Duffy  of  Am$- 
lee's,  who  had  accepted  a  number  of  O.  Henry's  stories, 
asked  him  to  come  to  New  York.  There  was  no  busi 
ness  proposition  involved;  the  editors  simply  foresaw 
success  for  the  writer  if  he  came  to  the  city  and 
through  their  publishers  advanced  the  check  that 
brought  him. 

O.  Henry  came,  saw  and  was  conquered.  If  Texas 
awoke  in  him  a  response  to  romance,  and  if  his  years 
in  Columbus  grilled  him  to  expression,  then  New  York 
gave  him  the  material  whereon  he  needed  most  to  try 
his  skill.  He  is  "the  narrator  and  supreme  celebrant 
of  the  life  of  the  great  city,"  writes  Dr.  Archibald 
Henderson*,  "in  the  parks  and  open  squares,  the  cheap 
restaurants  and  bowery  haunts,  the  crowded  department 
stores,  and  the  tiny  homes  of  the  aerial  flat  dwellers." 
Or,  as  Francis  Hackett  puts  it :  "In  one  sense  Broadway 
is  the  spinal  column  of  his  art,  and  the  nerve  branches 
cover  all  Manhattan.  He  knows  the  side  streets  where 
Maggie  boards.  He  knows  Harlem.  He  knows  the 
narrow  chested  flat.  He  knows  the  Bowery,  Irish 
and  Yiddish.  He  knows  the  Tenderloin,  cop,  pan 
handler,  man  about  town,  sport,  bartender,  and  waiter. 
He  knows  Shanleys  and  Childs,  the  lemon-odored 

*  Southern  Review,  May,  1920. 


214        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

buffet  and  the  French  table  d'hote.  He  knows  the 
sham  Bohemia,  the  real  Bohemia.  And  his  stories  are 
starred  with  little  vignettes  of  the  town,  paragraphs  of 
unostentatious  art  that  let  us  see  Madison  Square,  or 
the  White  Way,  or  the  Park,  or  the  side  street  in 
springtime — all  clear  as  the  vision  in  the  crystal!" 

At  first,  as  was  natural,  his  stories  dealt  with  the 
scenes  he  had  left  in  the  other  Americas  and  Texas. 
He  had  made  up  his  mind  to  keep  the  shadowed  years 
secret.  And  the  first  impression  he  made  upon  his 
friends  at  Ainslee's  was  a  "reticence  of  deliberateness." 
Oilman  Hall  thought,  at  times,  that  O.  Henry  might 
once  have  killed  a  man,  as  he  had  a  way  of  looking 
quickly  around  a  restaurant  on  entering,  but  Mr.  Hall 
abandoned  this  theory  when  he  discovered  that  O. 
Henry  did  not  carry  a  pistol.  If  Mr.  O.  W.  Firkins* 
is  right,  then  O.  Henry  was  still  serving  his  apprentice 
ship  before  coming  into  his  own  in  the  New  York 
stories.  "With  the  exception  of  his  New  Orleans,  I 
care  little  for  his  South  and  West,  which  are  a  boyish 
South  and  West,  and  as  little,  or  even  less,  for  his 
Spanish-American  communities."  At  the  same  time, 
there  are  critics  who  prefer  his  stories  of  the  South.  A 
Blackjack  Bargainer,  A  Municipal  Report,  The  Ran 
som  of  Red  Chief — these  surely  are  among  his  ripest 
work.  And  Dr.  Henderson  remarks,  "His  own  rich 
and  variegated  experiences  in  the  Southwest  and  in 
*  The  Review,  September  13,  1919. 


"O.  HENRY"  215 

South  America;  the  strange  and  bizarre  narratives  he 
gleaned  from  his  fellow  prisoners — cracksmen,  des 
peradoes,  hoboes,  men  of  the  underworld — these  by 
some  marvelous  alchemy  of  the  creative  imagination, 
he  transmitted  into  the  gold  of  literary  art." 

O.  Henry's  homes  in  New  York  may  be  traced 
roughly  in  his  stories.  Mr.  Arthur  Bartlett  Maurice* 
has  shown  that  he  lived  first  in  West  24th  Street,  then 
across  the  Square  in  East  24th  Street,  near  Fourth 
Avenue.  A  Madison  Square  Arabian  Night  was  pub 
lished  in  The  World,  January  24,  1904;  it  and  other 
stories  suggest  the  close  connection  between  this  locality 
and  his  use  of  it.  His  third  residence  was  55  Irving 
Place,  "a  few  doors  from  old  Wash  Irving's  house," 
he  wrote.  This  number  is  near  Gramercy  Park,  the 
scene  of  part  of  the  action  of  Two  Thanksgiving  Gen 
tlemen,  published  in  The  World,  November  26,  1905, 
and  not  far  from  Allaire's  Restaurant,  or  Scheffel  Hall, 
which  is  the  setting  for  The  Halberdier  of  the  Little 
Rheinschloss  (Everybody's,  May,  1907). 

His  fourth  home  was  back  across  the  Square  in  a 
house  next  to  the  rectory  of  Trinity  Chapel  in  West 
25th  Street,  whence  he  moved  to  The  Caledonia,  28 
West  26th  Street.  The  three  squares,  Madison,  Union 
and  Gramercy  Park  figure  repeatedly  in  the  stones 
written  within  the  fourth  period  of  his  life.  "Nor  did 
ever  Haroun-al-Raschid  and  his  viziers,  wandering  at 
*  The  New  York  of  the  Novelists. 


216        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

will  in  the  narrow  streets  of  their  Arabian  city,  meet 
such  varied  adventure  as  lies  before  us,  strolling  hand 
and  hand  with  O.  Henry  in  the  new  Bagdad  that  he 
reveals." 

In  1904,  O.  Henry  published  sixty-six  stories;  in 

1905,  fifty-five.     From  December  6,  1903,  to  July  15, 

1906,  The  World  alone  published  one  hundred  thirteen 
stories  from  his  pen.* 

Meantime,  Mrs.  Coleman,  mother  of  O.  Henry's 
boyhood  friend,  Sara  Coleman,  "Miss  Sallie,"  visited 
New  York.  She  returned  to  Greensboro  to  impart  to 
her  daughter  the  information  that  the  author  of  Ma 
dame  Bo-Peep  of  the  Ranches,  which  that  daughter 
had  been  treasuring  since  its  appearance  in  Smart  Set, 
1902,  was  no  other  than  Willie  Porter.  The  two  at 
once  entered  into  correspondence,  renewing  relations 
that  terminated  in  their  marriage  November  27,  1907. 

From  mid-year,  1906,  on  to  the  end,  O.  Henry  sold 
to  the  magazines,  for  the  most  part  to  Everybody's, 
of  which  his  friend,  Oilman  Hall,  had  become  Asso 
ciate  Editor,  and  John  O'Hara  Cosgrave  was  Editor- 
in-Chief.  Munsey's  and  Ainsleefs,  however,  continued 
to  share  in  his  output,  and  occasionally  Hampton's, 
The  American  or  The  Cosmopolitan. 

In  April,  1910,  he  set  out  in  search  of  health,  re 
visiting  the  scenes  of  his  boyhood;  but  he  returned, 

*I  am  indebted  for  these  statistics  to  Miss  Nella  Braddy,  of 
Doubleday,  Page  &  Co. 


"O.  HENRY"  217 

drawn  by  the  appeal  of  New  York.  He  was  taken 
to  the  Polyclinic  Hospital,  and  died  there  June  5,  1910. 
It  may  as  well  be  admitted  that  not  all  of  O.  Henry's 
work  is  so  good  as  his  best.  It  would  be  surprising  if 
there  were  not  unusual  depressions  and  extraordinary 
high-water  marks.  But  measured  by  the  strictest  stan 
dards  of  story  values,  his  stories  of  first  merit  would 
need  three  or  four  volumes  to  contain  them.  Even 
then  there  would  be  as  many  popular  favorites  omitted 
as  would  find  place  in  the  chosen  lot.  The  present 
writer  would  place  in  Volume  I  the  following  sixteen 
as  his  best : 

A  Double-Dyed  Deceiver. 

A  Blackjack  Bargainer. 

A  Municipal  Report. 

The  Furnished  Room. 

The  Hypotheses  of  Failure. 

Roads  of  Destiny. 

The  Ransom  of  Red  Chief. 

Jeff  Peters  as  a  Personal  Magnet. 

The  Marquis  and  Miss  Sally. 

The  Gift  of  the  Magi. 

The  Last  Leaf.  * 

The  Halberdier  of  the  Little  RheinsMoss. 

After  Twenty  Years. 

Christmas  by  Injunction. 

The  Hiding  of  Black  Bill. 

The  Last  of  the  Troubadours. 


218        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  popular  Unfinished  Story 
is  not  included.  It  is  just  what  the  author  called  it 
— unfinished.  Its  tour  de  force  closing  words  probably 
account  for  its  vogue.  Mr.  Firkins  'concludes  his 
article  above  mentioned :  "When  in  his  dream  of  heaven 
he  is  asked:  'Are  you  one  of  the  bunch?'  (meaning 
one  of  the  bunch  of  grasping  and  grinding  employers), 
the  response  through  all  its  slang  is  soul-stirring. 
'Not  on  your  immortality/  said  I.  Tm  only  the 
fellow  that  set  fire  to  an  orphan  asylum  and  murdered 
a  blind  man  for  his  pennies/  The  author  of  that  re 
tort  may  have  some  difficulty  with  the  sentries  that 
watch  the  entrance  of  Parnassus;  he  will  have  none 
with  the  gatekeeper  of  the  New  Jerusalem." 

A  slight  rustling,  not  yet  wholly  silent,  was  created 
a  few  years  ago  when  Katharine  Fullerton  Gerould 
was  reported  in  an  interview  to  have  said  that  O. 
Henry  wrote  not  short-stories  but  expanded  anecdotes. 
Although  it  cannot  greatly  matter  to  the  non-technician 
whether  the  name  of  anecdote  or  short-story  be  given 
to  his  narratives,  it  is  true  that  O.  Henry  frequently 
developed  pseudo-short  stories  in  anecdotal  fashion^ 
"O.  Henry's  A  Lickpenny  Lover,  The  Romance  of  a 
Bkisy  Broker  and  A  Comedy  in  Rubber  are  anec 
dotes,  farcial  anecdotes,  expanded.  They  are  read 
able  and  enjoyable,  but  this  fact  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  genre  to  which  they  belong.  A  Lickpenny 
Lover,  for  example,  might  be  put  into  a  form  no  longer 
than  this: 


"O.  HENRY"  219 

"The  young  man  was  imploring  the  young  lady  to 
be  his  own. 

"'Only  say  that  you  will  be  mine!'  he  cried.  *I 
long  to  fly  with  you  from  the  sordidness  of  the  life 
you  must  lead ;  it  would  be  bliss  to  introduce  to  you 
the  pleasures  of  a  world  far  from  Billington's  De 
partment  Store.  We  would  row  to  the  tune  of  the 
gondolier's  song,  would  visit  India  and  Japan,  would 
ride  in  'rikishas  and  toboggan  over  the  Hima 
layas ' 

"She  turned  cold  eyes  upon  him.  'Can't  you  do 
better  than  Coney  for  a  wedding  trip?' 

"And  she  rose  and  left  him."  * 

It  is  also  true  that  O.  Henry  repeated  his  plots. 
But  he  could  afford  to  do  so.  "There  is  one  literary 
trait,"  says  Mr.  Firkins,  "in  which  I  am  unable  to 
name  any  author  of  tales  in  any  literature  who  sur 
passes  O.  Henry.  It  is  not  primary  or  even  sec 
ondary  among  literary  merits;  it  is  less  a  value  per  se 
than  the  condition  or  foundation  of  values.  But  its 
utility  is  manifest,  and  it  is  rare  among  men :  Chaucer 
and  Shakespeare  prove  the  possibility  of  its  absence 
in  masters  of  that  very  branch  of  art  in  which  its  pres 
ence  would  seem  to  be  imperative.  I  refer  to  the 
designing  of  stories— not  to  the  primary  intuition  or 
to  skill  in  development,  in  both  of  which  finer  phases 

*From  A  Handbook  on  Story  Writing,  p.  49,  by  Blanche 
Colton  Williams,  Dodd,  Mead  and  Company,  191?. 


220        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

of  invention  O.  Henry  has  been  largely  and  frequently 
surpassed,  but  to  the  disposition  of  masses,  to  the  block 
ing  out  of  plots.  That  a  half  educated  American  pro 
vincial  should  have  been  original  in  a  field  in  which 
original  men  have  been  copyists  is  enough  of  itself 
to  make  his  personality  observable." 

The  following  stories  all  have  a  common  plot  for 
mula,  and  yet  the  originality  of  each  is  distinct  from 
all  the  others :  A  Service  of  Love,  Lost  on  Dress  Pa 
rade,  While  the  Auto  Waits,  The  Shocks  of  Doom, 
Transients  in  Arcadia,  Two  Thanksgiving  Day  Gen 
tlemen,  Proof  of  the  Pudding,  The  World  and  the 
Door,  The  Whirligig  of  Life,  The  Gift  of  the  Magi. 

In  connection  with  these  plots,  O.  Henry  must  have 
observed  that  Henry  James  had  employed  the  method 
he  himself  used.  It  is  a  far  call  from  one  of  these 
stylists  to  the  other;  yet  the  older  writer's  Broken 
Wings,  The  Real  Thing,  and  The  Madonna  of  the 
Future  have  at  their  bases  the  very  plot  principle  on 
which  O.  Henry  rested  the  group  just  given. 

It  is  a  truism  to  observe  that  he  learned  from 
Aldrich  and  Maupassant  how  to  construct  surprise; 
but  not  to  remark  that  he  progressed  beyond  the  French 
author  in  this  particular  phase  of  technique.  The  fol 
lowing  stories  represent  his  ability  to  create  surprise 
by  deliberately  withholding  a  detail  which  he  reveals 
in  the  denouement :  A  Double-Dyed  Deceiver,  Christ- 
mas  by  Injunction,  After  Twenty  Years.  These  illus 
trate  his  ability  to  secure  surprise  by  deliberate  at>- 


"O.  HENRY"  221 

tempt  to  mislead  and  the  certain  wager  that  the  reader 
will  follow  a  conventional  track:  "Girl"  and  Oc 
tober  wid  June.  And  these  effect  surprise  through  a 
clever  use  of  the  angle  of  narration:  The  Hiding  of 
Black  Bill,  The  Gift  of  the  Magi,  Lost  on  Dress  Pa 
rade.  In  all  these,  and  in  many  others,  he  takes  ad 
vantage  of  the  well-known  principle  that  the  reader 
helps  to  invent  the  story.  The  reader  speeds  along  a 
beaten  path  of  foregone  conclusion  and  finds  that  he 
does  not  "come  out  with"  the  author.  Upon  the  dif 
ference  between  the  points  of  the  two  arrivals  depends 
the  shock,  the  surprise.  And  it  further  depends  upon 
the  difference  between  the  hackneyed  and  the 
original. 

It  may  be  true  that  O.  Henry's  characters  are 
types.  "Club  men,  fighters,  thieves,  policemen,  touts, 
shop-girls,  lady  cashiers,  hoboes,  actors,  stenogra 
phers,  and  what  not,"  the  list  is  long.  There  are  those 
who  agree  with  William  Marion  Reedy  that  as  a  de- 
picter  of  New  York's  Four  Million  "O.  Henry  has 
no  equal  for  keen  insight  into  the  beauties  and  mean 
nesses  of  character  or  motive."  And  if  he  did  em 
phasize  type,  he  placed  upon  it  a  hall-mark  that  stamps 
it  his  forever. 

O.  Henry  sums  up  the  development  of  story  art 
from  Poe  to  the  present.  Stockton  humor,  Aldrich 
surprise,  and  Harte's  exaltation  of  local  color  con 
tributed  to  his  flood  tide.  But  they  remain  tributary. 


222        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 
O.  Henry's  volumes  of  short-stories: 

Cabbages  and  Kings,   1904. 
The  Four  Million,  1906. 
The  Trimmed  Lamp,  1907. 
Heart  of  the  West,  1907. 
The  Voice  of  the  City,   1908. 
The  Gentle  Grafter,  1908. 
Roads  of  Destiny,  1909. 
Options,   1909. 
Strictly  Business,  1910. 
Whirligigs,  1910. 
Sixes  and  Sevens,  1911. 
Rolling  Stones,  1913. 
Waifs  and  Strays,  1919* 


CHAPTER   XIII 

JOSEPH     HERGESHEIMEK 

IT  occasionally  happens  that  a  writer  bursts  into 
publicity  with  a  bomb  effect,  stunning  his  audience 
into  admiration  which  is  the  prelude  to  chatter  over 
his  unexpectedness.      The   period   of    formation,   the 
preparation  of  the  bomb,  is  too  slow  and  tedious  for 
popular  interest.     It  is  left  out  of  account.     Booth 
Tarkington  was  "fussin'  with  literatchoor"   for  five 
years,  an  apprenticeship  his  happy  readers  knew  little 
and  cared  less  about  as  they  helped  to  make  The  Gen 
tleman  from  Indiana  one  of  the  best  sellers  in  the  last 
year  of  the  nineteenth  century.    James  Branch  Cabell 
came  into  the  fringe  of  popularity  with  The^  Eagle's 
Shadow,  in  1904,  and  then  in  his  winged  soaring  after 
the  gleam  rose  far  out  of  the  lime-light  glow.    A  dozen 
years  later  he  is,  in  a  manner,  re-discovered.     At  least 
part  of  his  public  forgets  that  he  was  proving  himself 
an  artist,  meantime,  in  The  Line  of  Love,  and  Chivalry 
and  Gallantry,  which,  fortunately,  were  too  good  for  a 
riot  of  sales. 

Joseph  Hergesheimer  wrote  steadily   for  fourteen 
years  before  finding  acceptance  with  the  editors.    Only 

223 


224        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

the  other  day  an  English  novelist  visiting  our  shores  is 
reported  to  have  spoken  of  him  as  one  of  three  great 
American  artists,  the  others  being  Willa  Gather  and 
James  Branch  Cabell. 

No  reading  of  Mr.  Cabell  and  Mr.  Hergesheimer, 
however  superficial,  can  fail  to  observe  the  striking 
similarity  of  aim  and  purpose  joined  to  a  dissimilarity 
of  objective  methods.  The  unlikeness  exists  by  virtue 
of  the  epochs  and  countries,  which  are  followed  by  an 
attendant  train  of  divergences  in  the  setting,  the  dialect 
and  the  customs,  each  author  has  chosen;  it  exists, 
also,  by  difference  in  manner,  style.  Their  resemblance 
lies  in  the  search  for  beauty,  and  in  their  common  con 
cept  of  the  great  and  only  human  struggle— that 
between  the  ideal  and  the  practical,  the  visionary  and 
the  real. 

Mr.  Hergesheimer  wrote  "Looking  back  over  the 
whole  field  of  my  work  a  very  few  things  are  evident, 
and  principally  that  I  always  write  about  people,  men 
usually  near  forty,  who  are  not  happy.  The  story 
at  bottom  is  nearly  always  the  same — a  struggle  be 
tween  what  is  called  the  spirit  and  what  is  called  the 
flesh — the  spirit  is  victorious — that  is  why,  it  seems 
to  me,  my  books  are  happy  books/'  *  He  and  Mr. 
Cabell — who,  in  his  estimation,  "writes  beautifully" — i 
have  also  in  common  the  gift  of  satire.  The  close 
of  Mr.  Hergesheimer's  The  Lay  Anthony  and  Mr. 
CabdTs  Jurgen,  throughout,  are  illustrations.  But  as 
*  The  Men  Who  Make  Our  Novels,  by  George  Gordon. 


JOSEPH  HERGESHEIMER  225 

yet  Mr.  Cabell  uses  this  gift  more  swiftly,  dextrously, 
and  more  constantly. 

Joseph  Hergesheimer  was  born  at  Philadelphia, 
February  15,  1880.  Because  of  persistent  illness  in 
his  childhood  he  began  the  period  of  idling  which  con 
tinued  until  the  day  in  the  early  i  goo's  when  he  bought 
a  decrepit  type  machine  and  set  for  himself  the  task  of 
writing.  His  early  memories,  according  to  Some 
Veracious  Paragraphs  *  and  Mr.  Gordon's  articles  are 
of  his  Grandfather  Thomas  McKellar's  large  mid-Vic 
torian  house  and  the  family  therein  domiciled.  There 
were  the  grandfather,  of  the  short  beard  and  steel- 
bowed  spectacles,  "rigorously  Presbyterian";  two  an 
cient  great-aunts,  "like  shriveled  and  blasted  apples," 
another  "excessively  genteel" ;  Joseph  and  his  mother, 
and  infrequently  Joseph's  father.  This  gentleman  was 
an  officer  in  the  United  States  Coast  and  Geodetic 
Survey  and  the  boy's  earliest  memories  of  him  are  of 
his  playing  the  violin  or  bending  over  a  large  table 
drawing  maps. 

Mr.  Hergesheimer  vividly  remembers  the  setting, 
under  the  Fourth  of  July  lanterns  or  January  snow 
and  ice.  He  recalls  the  white  marble  mantels,  the  tall 
glimmering  mirrors,  the  onyx-topped  tables,  and  a  for 
mal  parlor  with  a  lovely  Chinese  cabinet  and  domestic 
paintings  of  the  Dutch  school;  the  walls  of  hall,  music- 
room  and  library,  lined  with  books,  "every  book  a  suc 
cessful  Scotch  Presbyterian  type-founder  would  pos- 

*  The  Bookman,  September,  1918. 


226        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

sess";  the  bell  that  clashed  for  prayers,  morning  and 
evening.  His  mother  subscribed  for  a  series  of  paper- 
bound  love  stories,  and  these  young  Hergesheimer  read 
to  his  edification.  "After  a  number  of  pleasant  years 
in  the  company  of  The  Duchess  and  a  stainless  Indian 
named  Deerfoot,"  and  he  adds  Ouida  elsewhere,  he 
started  to  school.  Who's  Who  records  succinctly :  "ed. 
short  period  at  a  Quaker  sch.,  Phila.  and  Pa.  Acad. 
Fine  Arts."  Mr.  Hergesheimer  says  that  at  the 
Quaker  school  he  failed  with  the  boys  and  with  the 
girls,  and  at  the  end  of  two  or  three  terms  he  definitely 
withdrew  himself  from  the  field  of  education.  At 
seventeen,  he  entered  the  Fine  Arts  Academy,  where 
he  worked  two  days  in  the  month.  He  underwent  a 
love  affair  which  he  frankly  confesses  occupied  him 
until  he  was  twenty-one.  Before  he  was  nineteen, 
however,  every  one  of  his  family  died.  On  his  grand 
father's  death  he  received  a  sum  of  money,  which  he 
immediately  dissipated  in  Venice,  where  he  had  a  pri 
vate  gondola  and  gondolier.  He  spent  days  floating 
on  the  placid  tide  beyond  Murano,  rolling  cigarettes, 
and  he  so  lived  until,  his  money  exhausted,  he  came 
home.  About  this  point  in  the  pursuit  of  Mr.  Herges- 
heimer's  reminiscences  the  reader  suspects  the  veracious 
paragraphs  of  romancing.  It  all  seems  too  good  to  be 
true;  it  is  precisely  the  account  of  himself  the  author 
might  have  prepared  as  outline  for  a  fictive  auto 
biography.  He  continues  by  asseverating  that  he  next 
manifested  a  desire  for  "low  company."  A  night- 


JOSEPH  HERGESHEIMER  227 

hawk  cabman  who  had  been  a  prize-fighter  was  his 
special  friend,  with  whom  he  went  to  remarkable  balls. 
One  morning,  he  found  his  mode  of  living  less  than 
satisfactory  and  determined  upon  change.  He  took  the 
train  for  Harper's  Ferry.  There,  again,  the  incidents 
that  befell  him  are  characterized  by  coincidence  as  stun 
ning  as  ever  befell  man  outside  his  own  fiction.  But 
the  significance  of  his  moments  in  the  hotel  lay  in  read 
ing  proof  of  a  novel,  which  he  found  a  challenge.  He 
believed  he  could  do  better.  Of  course,  he  was  right. 
But  it  was  some  years  before  his  belief  was  justified, 
perhaps  even  to  himself. 

With  a  second-hand  type  machine  he  retired  to  a 
farmhouse,  where  he  addressed  himself  to  "the  difficul 
ties  of  creative  writing."  His  first  story  he  re-wrote 
a  score  of  times.  "It  would  be  difficult,"  he  says,  "to 
express  the  depth  of  my  ignorance  at  that  time.  I 
could  follow  the  superficial  logic  of  events,  and  I  had 
a  vague  idea  from  its  appearance  when  a  sentence  was 
completely  wrong.  That  was  the  extent  of  my  literary 
knowledge  and  background."  (Query:  Is  the  proof 
reader  or  the  author  at  fault  for  the  form  "ladened" 
which  occurs  with  such  annoying  frequency  in  his 
tales?) 

The  script  was  returned.  Only  after  fourteen  years 
of  continued  writing  did  he  succeed  in  selling  a  story. 
He  says  of  his  first  novel  that  a  thousand  copies  were 
exempt  from  royalties  and  nearly  nine  hundred  were 
sold.  The  Lay  Anthony  (1914)  institutes  the  author's 


228        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

dramatization  of  the  conflict  between  flesh  and  spirit. 
Anthony  Ball,  with  his  memories  of  Eliza  Dreen, 
strives  toward  chastity,  finding  strength  only  in  his 
dream  of  perfect  love.  But  his  ideal  becomes  an 
obsession:  his  virtue  becomes  one  of  the  flesh  rather 
than  the  spirit.  As  Mr.  Cabell  *  affirms,  not  one  of  Mr. 
Hergesheimer's  five  novels  varies  from  the  formula 
of  men  laboring  toward  the  unattainable,  and  a  high 
questing  foiled.  And  he  adduces,  further,  the  in 
stance  of  Gordon  Makimmon  (of  Mountain  Blood, 
I9I5)>  whose  vain  struggle  was  to  atone;  the  heroes  of 
The  Three  Black  Penny s  (1917),  who  floundered 
toward  the  beauty  of  a  defiant  carnal  passion;  the  five 
persons  of  Java  Head,  who  struggle  and  "fretfully 
know  their  failure  to  be  foredoomed,  toward  the  captur 
ing  of  one  or  another  evincement  of  beauty,  with  the  re 
sultant  bodily  demolishment  of  three  of  them  and  the 
spiritual  maiming  of  the  others/'  And  he  concludes 
this  brief :  "Now  the  fifth  and  incomparably  the  finest 
and  loveliest  of  the  Hergesheimer  novels  is  Linda 
Condon,  which  renders  self-confesedly  a  story  of  'the 
old  service  of  beauty,  of  the  old  gesture  toward  the 
stars' — 'here  never  to  be  won,  never  to  be  realized.' ' 
Although  discussion  of  Mr.  Hergesheimer's  novels 
has  small  place  here  and  they  have  been  summed  up 
through  the  appreciation  of  his  fellow-artist,  there  is 
one  point  regarding  Linda  Condon  which  calls  for 

*/«  Respect  to  Joseph  Hergesheimer,  Bookman,  November- 
December,  1919. 


JOSEPH  HERGESHEIMER  229 

comment  not  yet  bestowed.  The  foreshortening  of  the 
story  makes  Linda  seem  much  like  a  modern  child — a 
child  of  to-day — when  she  appears  at  the  beginning; 
yet  at  the  end  she  is  an  old  lady.  Many  years  pass 
as  though  only  a  few.  If  the  author  was  consciously 
experimenting  in  futurism  or  some  other  'ism'  for 
bringing  the  modern  novel  within  the  reading  time 
of  the  modern  reader,  this  is  an  admirable  new  device. 
Not  so  successful  is  he  at  the  climax  of  her  marriage. 
We  turn  from  a  scene  between  her  and  her  suitor  and 
gasp  as  we  see  her  (on  the  next  page)  walking  out, 
followed  by  her  children.  Oddly  enough,  Mr.  Herge- 
sheimer  says:  "I'd  like  to  write  a  novel  about  a  girl 
of  fourteen,  slender,  with  a  black  bang  and  blue-black 
eyes,  in  a  modern  hotel  with  porphyry  columns  and 
turkey-red  carpet,  against  a  background  of  cold  gorged 
women  in  dinner  gowns."  The  pertinence  of  this 
quotation  with  respect  to  the  note  on  the  foreshortening 
method  lies  in  the  words,  "a  modern  hotel."  He  begins 
with  to-day;  more  than  half  a  century  later  he  ends 
with  to-day. 

Mr.  Hergesheimer  has  published  two  volumes  of 
short  stories:  Gold  and  Iron  (1917)  and  The  Happy 
End  (1919).  The  former  consists  of  Wild  Oranges, 
Tubal  Cain  and  The  Dark  Fleece — three  "long  shorts." 
Iron  is  the  theme  of  the  second,  gold  of  the  third, 
while  the  wild  oranges  of  the  first  are  a  sort  of  figura 
tive  gold  for  the  woman  beside  whom  other  women 
were  mere  garden  fruit. 


230        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Part  of  Mr.  Hergesheimer's  task  which  he  has  set 
himself  to  perform  before  the  night  cometh  is  the 
celebration  of  various  ages  of  industry  in  America. 
His  novels  are  epics,  whether  of  long  voyages  to  China 
that  are  the  eighteenth  century  American  version  of  the 
search  for  the  Golden  Fleece,  or  of  the  Gage  Steel  and 
Iron  Works  compared  with  which  the  forge  of  Vulcan 
was  but  a  giant's  plaything.  His  short  stories  are 
but  novels  in  miniature.  The  forge,  Tubal  Cain,  is 
set  in  Pennsylvania  in  the  days  of  the  iron  age,  and 
as  it  is  abandoned  by  the  owner,  Claypole,  because  of 
his  religious  fanaticism,  so  it  is  reclaimed  by  Alexander 
Hulings  because  of  his  inflexible  resolution  to  become 
a  man  of  power.  The  iron-willed  man  becomes  the 
greatest  Ironmaster  of  the  state.  The  author  has 
created  him  not  only  through  suggested  comparison 
with  his  own  iron,  but  through  the  number  of  tragedies 
put  ruthlessly  behind  him  on  the  way  to  his  goal.  Again, 
the  character  is  that  of  the  epic.  Only  fifteen  words 
are  allotted  Hallie  Flower,  but  they  are  sufficient 
to  make  her  live  as  a  deserted  woman;  little  space  is 
given  to  Wishon's  son,  but  it  is  enough  for  the  reader 
to  gather  that  faithful  service  and  death  were  the  at 
tendants  of  the  Ironmaster's  course. 

This  author's  women  are  rather  shadowy,  mys 
terious,  and  reticent,  and  therefore  incomprehensible; 
because  of  their  incomprehensibility  they  are  the  more 
powerful.  They  frequently  capitulate,  most  convinc 
ingly,  to  romance.  And  in  this  capitulation  Mr.  Herge- 


JOSEPH  HERGESHEIMER  231 

sheimer  has  laid  firm  hold  on  a  basic  element  of 
feminine  character — not  the  only  element,  however. 
Hulings  by  his  affair  with  the  duelist  worked  on  the 
imagination  of  Gisela,  daughter  to  his  rival.  So  Jason 
Burrage  (The  Dark  Fleece)  became,  in  lesser  degree, 
a  figure  of  romance  to  Honora  Canderay,  inspiring 
her  proposal  to  him  after  his  return  to  California. 
The  Dark  Fleece  is  Mr.  Hergesheimer's  contribution 
to  the  literature  of  the  days  of  '49  when  the  Argonauts 
headed  for  the  California  coast,  and  as  the  title  implies 
is  another  epic  fragment. 

The  struggle  in  Tubal  Cain  is  single,  of  the  starkly 
simple  variety  wherein  man  wrestles  with  his  destiny 
and  conquers.  In  The  Dark  Fleece,  the  interest  is 
divided  between  Jason's  and  Olive's  affairs,  afterward 
shifting  wholly  to  Honora  and  Jason's.  The  Dark 
Fleece  is  a  novel ;  as  a  story  it  leaves  untold  the  fictive 
histories  with  which  it  first  intrigued  the  reader's 
imagination.  But  there  is  compensation  for  loss  of  the 
"story"  in  the  figure  of  Honora;  and  we  should  not 
take  a  great  deal  for  the  denouement  wherein  she  horse 
whips  so  efficaciously  the  unspeakable  Thomas  Cast. 
This,  even  though  we  know  as  Jason  knew,  that 
"Honora  would  always  be  a  Canderay  for  him,  he 
must  perpetually  think  of  her  in  the  terms  of  his  early 
habit;  she  would  eternally  be  a  little  beyond  him,  a 
being  to  approach,  to  attend  with  ceremony." 

The  Happy  End  (1919)  contains  seven  short  stories, 
of  average  length  and  scope.  Lonely  Valleys,  a  tale 


233        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

of  some  eight  thousand  words,  is  technically  interest 
ing  in  that  the  plot  denouement  becomes  the  first  page 
of  the  finished  narrative.  It  succeeds  in  baring,  by 
half  concealment  and  altogether  beautiful  restraint, 
the  pathos  in  the  lives  of  men  and  women  who  inhabit 
lonely  valleys.  The  girls  go  away  to  the  city,  to  escape, 
and  fall  on  evil  days ;  the  boys  stay  at  home,  to  conquer, 
and  miss  life,  shut  in  by  the  high  green  mountain 
walls.  In  its  pessimism,  suggested  however  and  not 
urged,  the  story  is  of  the  Main-Travelled  Road  variety. 
Moreover,  the  method  is  romantic,  rather  than  after 
the  realism  of  Mr.  Garland.  Depression  settles  upon 
a  reader  who  finishes  the  tale  of  Calvin  Stammark 
and  Lucy,  daughter  of  Hannah,  as  it  descends  upon 
him  at  the  close  of  Mr.  Garland's  A  Branch  Road.  The 
late  William  Dean  Howells  wrote  of  the  latter:  "It  is 
all  morally  wrong,  but  the  author  leaves  you  to  say 
that  yourself.  He  knows  that  his  business  was  with 
those  people,  their  .passions  and  their  probabilities." 
Without  the  change  of  a  word  the  same  comment  might 
be  made  of  Lonely  Valleys.  The  price  'of  Calvin's 
protecting  Lucy  seems  too  great  for  the  lukewarm  and 
immature  affection  he  will  receive,  just  as  her  sur 
render  seems  too  pitifully  absolute  for  her  compensa 
tion. 

Mr.  Hergesheimer's  Scotch  Presbyterian  inheritance 
emerges  in  the  piety  that  characterizes  Olive  of  The 
Dark  Fleece  and  Lemuel  Doret,  of  The  Egyptian 
Chariot.  Lemuel's  spirit  struggles;  then  having  lost 


JOSEPH  HERGESHEIMER  233 

daughter  and  wife  he  turns  to  the  city  to  find  June 
Bowman.  But  the  song,  "God's  chariot  out  of  Egypt" 
brings  him  to  his  knees  and  he  turns  again  from  the 
city,  leaving  vengeance  to  God. 

These  are  two  of  six  stories  in  The  Happy  End, 
of  what  Mr.  Cabell  has  called  beautifully  written  moral 
tales.  He  finds  the  seventh,  The  Flower  of  Spain, 
"well-nigh  perfect  and  a  profoundly  immoral  work  of 
art/'  But  there  are  two  flaws  in  the  story,  from  an 
artistic  point  of  view.  One  is  the  literal  lugging  in 
of  a  bull  that  Mochales  may  show  his  prowess;  another 
is  the  happy  end  for  Lavinia  and  Orsi  through  the 
sudden  death  of  the  bull-fighter  in  an  elevator  accident. 
A  realist  might  have  used  the  elevator  accident;  but 
for  the  romanticist  it  smacks  too  crisply  of  the  inten 
tion  implied  in  the  title  of  the  volume.  The  women 
in  this  tale  are  among  the  most  individual  Mr.  Herge- 
sheimer  has  created.  Lavinia  is  a  sister  of  Linda 
Condon,  though  one  is  of  Italy,  the  other  of  America, 

The  Thrush  in  the  Hedge,  which  relates  the  story 
of  Harry  Baggs,  tramp,  and  Old  Janin  who  played 
the  violin  at  the  Opera  Comique,  emphasizes  music 
as  a  theme.  This  musical  motif  is  touched  here  and 
there  throughout  the  author's  works  with  a  sureness 
that  is  pledge  for  his  interest  in  the  art  of  sound  rhythm 
as  his  word  pictures  are  gauges  for  his  study  of  color 
rhythm.  Perhaps  the  violinist,  Mr.  Hergesheimer's 
father,  is  to  be  thanked  that  his  son  "has  an  ear." 


234        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Tollable  David  is  the  most  popular  of  this  author's 
short  stories,  though  to  the  nicely  critical  mind  it  may 
appear  to  be  a  striving  to  "convey  his  (Herge- 
sheimer's)  apprehensions  of  life  via  some  such  always 
acceptable  vehicle  as  the  prehistoric  fairy-tale  cliche 
of  the  scorned  and  ultimately  victorious  third  cham 
pion."  One  manifestation  of  Mr.  Hergesheimer's 
talent  lies  in  his  seizing  upon  prehistoric  or  historic 
types  and  making  them  at  home  in  the  twentieth  cen 
tury,  as  the  conflicts  wherein  they  take  part  are  modern 
representatives  of  old  myths  and  epics.  Jason  of  the 
Golden  Fleece  and  Anthony  of  the  temptation  are  the 
companions,  in  their  age-old  names  and  roles,  of 
Tol'able  David 

Since  the  publication  of  The  Happy  End,  Mr, 
Hergesheimer  has  published  in  The  Saturday  Evening 
Post,  a  carefully  wrought  narrative  of  some  ten  thou 
sand  words,  Blue  Ice,  done  after  the  manner  of  Mau 
passant;  and  in  The  Century,  one  of  the  strongest 
human  interest  stories  of  1920,  Read  Them  and  Weep. 

The  most  remarkable  accomplishment  of  Mr.  Herge 
sheimer  is  the  process  by  which  as  author  he  ap 
parently  undergoes  a  backward  or  reverse  reincarna 
tion.  It  is  as  though  he  were  one  man  after  another, 
or  before  another,  in  various  historical  eras.  His 
assurance  about  the  setting,  to  the  detail  of  a  bell  rope, 
about  the  speech,  to  the  last  inflection  of  a  syllable; 
about  the  dress,  to  the  sound  of  crinoline  swish  or 


JOSEPH  HERGESHEIMER  235 

the  angle  of  a  parasol, — this  assurance  affirms  that  he 
was  present  in  all  the  scenes  he  evokes.  Of  course, 
we  say,  the  unparading  review  simply  means  that  he 
has  read  and  has  synchronized  his  movements  to  those 
of  the  past.  None  the  less,  we  aver  that  he  might 
have  been  Hulings,  he  might  have  been  any  one  of 
the  three  Black  Pennys — who  lived,  it  will  be  remem 
bered,  some  generations  apart — he  might  have  been  the 
hero  of  Java  Head  or  the  returned  bearer  of  the  dark 
fleece.  It  is  enough  to  make  one  turn  metempsychosist. 

Again,  no  present  day  writer  is  more  delicately 
adjusted  physically  and  aesthetically  than  Mr.  Herge- 
sheimer.  Surely,  if  keen  appreciation  of  atmospheric 
moods,  sensitiveness  to  light  and  shadow,  and  swift 
reaction  to  color — lilac  and  orange  in  particular — are 
signs,  he  would  have  made  a  great  artist  of  the  brush. 
But  we  should  have  lost,  thereby,  his  odors.  Through 
them  he  calls  life  into  his  word  pictures,  whether  he 
does  so  through  whiskey,  oranges,  or  goya  lilies.  These 
aesthetic  sensibilities  joined  to  skill  acquired  by  long 
practice  mean  sharp  and  sure  representation  of  realities. 
As  Mr.  Cabell  puts  it,  "to  turn  from  actual  life  to 
Joseph  Hergesheimer's  pages  arouses  a  sensation  some 
what  akin  to  that  sustained  by  a  myopic  person  when 
he  puts  on  spectacles." 

Mr.  Hergesheimer's  creations  further  illustrate  the 
pertinence  of  an  old  saying  that  art  is  nature  passed 
through  the  lens  of  temperament.  For  it  is  his  way 


236        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

of    visualizing    and    his    peculiar    individuality    that 
stamp  upon  his  work  "Joseph  Hergesheimer  fecit" 
Mr.  Hergesheimer' s  Short  Stories: 

Gold  and  Iron,  1918 
The  Happy  End,  1919. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

FANNIE  HURST 

I   WAS  born  O   ober  19,  1889,  in  Hamilton,  Ohio," 
writes  Fannie  Hurst,  "although  I  usually  pass 
the  honor  on  to  St.  Louis,  Missouri,  since  I  was 
taken  to  Hamilton  for  the  exclusive  purpose  of  being 
born  there  in  a  gem  of  an  old  grandparental  home 
stead,  and  returned  to  St.  Louis  while  still  in  the  beety, 
underdone  infantile  stage,  where  I  grew  up  a  naughty, 
rather  spoiled  only  child." 

Life  for  her  was  easy  from  the  beginning.  Para 
doxically,  her  only  battles  have  been  against  a  well- 
ordered,  smooth-graded  existence.  Perhaps  in  early 
years  and  through  high  school  the  level  smoothness 
grew  monotonous  to  the  eager  girl  athrill  with  life. 
She  "did"  her  lessons  dutifully;  she  practised  her 
scales ;  she  accomplished  a  precocious  amount  of  read 
ing,  and  she  escaped  atrophy  through  self-expression. 
One  fancies  her,  heavy  dark  braid  thrown  over  her 
shoulder  after  the  fashion  of  her  Star-Dust  her 
oine,  before  her  small  desk  writing  verses  and  ro 
mances. 

By  the  year  1903  she  had  accumulated  a  quantity 
237 


238        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

of  rejected  poems,  among  them  a  blank  verse  masque 
sent  back  from  The  Saturday  Evening  Post.  Two 
years  later  her  completion  of  Coleridge's  Christabel 
fared  not  more  successfully  with  Poet  Lore.  Poetry 
comes  first  in  the  history  of  the  individual  as  of  the 
race.  Miss  Hurst's  development  proved  no  excep 
tion  to  the  rule. 

The  fiction  writer  may  be  born;  but  he  is  indubi 
tably  made — by  his  habits.  While  yet  of  dancing 
school  age,  Miss  Fannie  conceived  the  astounding 
business  project  of  mailing  her  contribution  on  Sat 
urday  that  it  might  reach  the  editor  for  whom  it  was 
designed  on  the  following  Monday.  There  is  a  legend, 
for  which  she  is  responsible,  that  she  gave  up  a  party, 
new  frock  and  escort  and  all,  on  a  particular  St.  Val 
entine's  Day  to  remain  at  home  for  completing  her 
hebdomadal  offering. 

This  story,  Upon  the  Irony  of  Fate,  she  received 
back  from  the  shy  and  recalcitrant  editor.  But  no 
critic  could  read  the  script  without  recognizing  in  its 
author  the  potentialities  of  the  present  artist.  She 
pictures  in  it,  with  the  same  verisimilitude  and  the 
same  regard  for  detail  which  to-day  convince  her  read 
ers,  an  Indian  girl  and  her  dress  down  to  the  utter 
most  bead.  The  "story"  reveals  her  combination  of 
the  romantic — melodramatic,  of  course,  in  that  early 
effort — with  the  realistic.  In  short,  it  represents  her 
power  in  embryo.  Already  she  is  passing  realism 
through  a  romantic  temperament,  and  so  producing 


FANNIE  HURST  239 

characters  of  Dickens  kind,  who  act  with  Ouida  in 
tensity  against  a  back-drop  of  prosaic  William  Dean 
Howells  fact.  It  is  easy  to  see  this  flair  now ;  but  not 
less  surely  should  it  have  been  easy  then  to  affirm, 
"Granted  health  and  persistence,  this  writer  will  go 
far." 

After  four  years  of  high  school  and  continued  writ 
ing,  Fannie  Hurst  braved  opposition  at  home  and  en 
tered  Washington  University.  There  she  wrote  so 
many  short-stories  she  herself  has  forgotten  how 
many:  the  number  is  variously  stated  as  twenty-one 
or  thirty-five  returned  by  one  national  weekly  alone. 
These,  however,  were  published  in  her  college  paper 
after  she  became  editor.  She  also  sold  for  three 
dollars  a  vignette  to  Reedy' s  Mirror.  Three  or  four 
years  later,  when  she  was  asked  by  another  editor  to 
try  her  hand  at  a  personality  sketch  of  the  most  in 
teresting  man  she  knew,  she  wrote  an  appreciation  of 
William  Marion  Reedy.  Her  lamentable  requital  after 
three  weeks  of  effort  was  that  she  had  treated  interest 
ing  material  in  an  uninteresting  manner. 

In  1909,  mid-year,  Miss  Hurst  took  her  baccalau 
reate  degree.  She  immediately  endured  a  brief  and 
unsatisfactory  career  as  teacher  in  a  St.  Louis  school. 
Her  resignation  followed  close  upon  her  entrance  into 
the  teaching  world  for  the  bona  fide  reason  that  her 
nerves  would  not  stand  the  strain.  Verily,  writers  are 
born — and  teachers.  In  spite  of  perfect  health  and 
perfectly  controlled  nervous  system,  the  girl's  tempera- 


240        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

ment  flatly  refused  to  adapt  itself  to  the  grind  of 
lessons. 

Still  short  of  her  twentieth  birthday,  she  turned  her 
face  to  New  York,  fighting  against  the  passive  appeal 
of  her  comfortable  home  and  the  active  will  of  her 
parents  that  she  there  remain.  If  one  was  ever  drawn 
by  a  sense  of  destiny,  Fannie  Hurst  was  drawn.  The 
skyey  towers  of  Manhattan  were  her  beacons ;  she  had 
no  choice  but  to  follow  their  gleam. 

(She  arrived  in  New  York  in  the  summer  of  1909, 
where  very  briefly,  with  the  aid  of  a  telephone  direc 
tory,  she  compiled  a  list  of  editors,  magazines,  and 
newspapers.  Within  the  month  she  had  become  a 
familiar  figure,  she  says,  "to  the  office  boys  of  journal 
istic  New  York."  Sustained  by  checks  from  home, 
she  saved  up  against  her  parents'  decision  to  abet  no 
further  her  wild  but  obstinate  determination.  Hurst 
vs.  Hurst!  After  six  months  they  discontinued  her 
allowance.  But  a  woman  acquaintance  sent  her  an 
•unsolicited  loan  of  three  hundred  dollars,  and  her 
mother,  weakening,  slipped  her  in  secret  two  hundred 
•more.  On  her  hoardings  and  these  windfalls,  she 
lived,  to  write  and  rewrite,  to  suffer  rejection  and  re- 
rejection.  In  1010-1911  she  took  a  course  at  Columbia 
University,  probably  as  a  sop  to  her  loving  guardians, 
surely  to  acquaint  herself  with  Anglo-Saxon.  In  the 
autumn,  still  having  found  no  takers  of  her  scripts 
she  became  an  actress  at  a  salary  of  $20  a  week.  'The 
Concert,"  with  Mr.  Leo  Ditrichstein  as  hero,  had  been 

it 


FANNIE  HURST  241 

running  ten  months  when  Miss  Hurst  secured,  quite 
by  accident,  as  she  states,  a  part  that  called  for  twenty 
words. 

"In  Act  One  I  appeared  as  follows:  *O  Master, 
Master!'  Then,  'I  bring  you  lilies  of  the  valley.'  After 
a  wait  of  two  acts,  I  again  appeared:  'Dear,  dear 
Master.'  The  Master  is  resting/  and,  finally,  'Oh, 
Master,  Master!"' 

In  the  somewhat  elongated  interval  between  Acts 
One  and  Four,  she  wrote  The  Seventh  Day.  It  was 
accepted  by  Smith's  Magazine  for  thirty  dollars,  just 
as  the  concert  started  on  tour.  The  lady  who  had 
apostrophized  the  Master  remained  in  New  York. 

She  sold  nothing  else  for  six  months,  but  in  this 
time  she  acquired  much  factual  knowledge  and  expe 
rience,  which  became  the  bedrock  of  her  imaginative 
structures  in  her  subsequent  fiction. 

"There  were  whole  weeks  of  rambling  among  the 
vivid  poor  of  the  vivid  East  Side."  This  sentence  of 
hers  explains  the  possibility  of  In  Memoriam  (in  Every 
Soul  Hath  Its  Song)  from  the  hand  of  a  girl  carefully 
nurtured,  as  protracted  living  'among  the  vivid  poor* 
explains  its  counterpart  of  later  years,  Anzia  Yezier- 
ska's  The  Fat  of  the  Land  (Century,  1919).  Or  con 
sider  the  following  paragraph  chosen  after  the  turn 
of  a  single  page,  from  The  Squall  (in  Just  Around 
the  Corner"): 

'     "Upon  a  fire-escape  level  with  her  own  window,  a 
child,  with  bare  feet  extended  over  the  iron  rail,  slept 


242        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

on  an  improvised  bed;  from  the  interior  of  that  same 
apartment  came  the  wail  of  a  sick  infant.  A  woman 
nude  to  the  waist  passed  to  and  fro  before  the  open 
window,  crooning  to  the  bundle  she  carried  in  the 
crook  of  her  arm."  If  the  passage  is  not  precisely 
as  it  is  because  Fannie  Hurst  lived  a  month  in  an 
Armenian  family  over  a  tobacconist's,  or  roamed  the 
by-ways  of  the  East  Side,  the  reason  is  that  her  imag 
ination  needs  only  a  slight  stimulus  to  create  definitely 
and  completely,  and  that  her  play-ground  gave  to  her 
a  general  stage  and  class  types,  out  of  which  she 
evolved  her  individual  scenes  and  characters.  She 
herself  says  that  she  has  never  "lifted"  a  character 
from  life ;  but  she  would  be  the  last  to  assert  that  con 
ditions  and  the  genus  had  nothing  to  do  with  her 
settings  and  particular  specimens. 

"I  apprenticed  myself  as  a  salesgirl  in  New  York's 
most  gigantic  cut-priced  department  store."  Who 
could  doubt  that  she  had  worked  most  of  her  life  in 
one,  except  for  the  years  spent  in  Childs'  Restaurant 
and  the  years  in  a  Polish  sweat-shop  and  the  years  in 
a  half-dozen  other  places!  Yet  she  remained  in  the 
department  store  only  a  week.  "Four  and  one-quarter 
yards  of  ribbon  at  seven  and  a  half  cents  a  yard  proved 
my  Waterloo  there,  and  my  resignation  at  the  end  of 
one  week  was  not  entirely  voluntary."  Again,  if 
White  Goods  (in  Humor esque)  does  not  rest  upon 
this  single  week  of  hard  work,  it  is  because  her  im- 


FANNIE  HURST  243 

agination  needed  no  ground  whatever  on  which  to  rest 
its  supports. 

A  period  of  an  actual  six  months  covers  these 
"years"  by  the  magic  known  to  the  fourth  dimension 
and  the  fiction  writer.  Ernest  Poole  once  replied,  when 
directly  questioned,  that  he  had  taken  notes  on  one  or 
two  mornings  of  the  scenes  described  in  The  Harbor 
as  viewed  from  the  Heights  of  his  volume.  One 
would  declare  that  he  had  lived  there  always.  Local 
color  may  not  be  altogether  fancied,  nor  altogether 
acquired  from  a  single  visit.  But  given  a  sympathetic 
heart  and  an  understanding  mind,  the  writer  who  is 
inspired  by  fresh  scenes  will  embody  local  color  with 
out  the  ado  some  sticklers  for  long  residence  demand. 

The  Character  Woman  grows  logically  from  Miss 
Hurst's  few  weeks  in  the  theater;  so,  perhaps,  do 
The  Wrong  Pew  and  others  of  her  tales.  Her  suc 
cess  is  particularly.effective  when  she  combines  a  New 
York  setting  with  one  in  St.  Louis ;  the  habitual  scenes 
of  childhood  match  equably  and  smoothly  those 
discovered  in  New  York.  The  Wrong  Pew,  for  ex 
ample,  contrasts  the  little  chorus  girl's  life  in  the  two 
cities  under  conditions  that  draw  sympathy  for  her  in 
each,  and  a  fine  sense  of  her  struggle — ending  as  it 
should  end:  "At  nine  thirty  and  with  dirty  daylight 
cluttering  up  the  cluttered  room,  the  alarm  clock,  full 
of  heinous  vigor,  bored  like  an  awl  into  the  morning." 

In  1911  Fannie  Hurst  met  Robert  H.  Davis  of 
Munsey's  Magazine.  "Fannie  Hurst,"  he  told  her, 


OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

"you  can  write."  As  if  by  white  magic  or  miracle,  all 
obstacles  fell.  Shortly  she  was  selling  her  first  "big 
pay"  story  for  $300;  shortly  afterward  that  magnifi 
cent  $300  had  dwindled  beside  her  high  four-figure 
price.  To-day  she  is  one  of  the  best-paid  American 
writers.  And,  like  Jack  London,  she  draws  large  sums 
for  "work  performed."  For  her  published  stories — a 
hundred,  or  very  near  that  number — are  being  filmed. 
Humor esque,  written  in  1919,  was  published  the  same 
year  and  was  produced  on  the  screen  in  the  spring  of 
1920.  At  the  Criterion,  on  Broadway,  the  attendance 
broke  all  previous  records ;  thousands  looked  upon  the 
dissolving  views  and  wept,  as  though  they  sat  before 
flesh  and  blood  actors.  Its  success  lies  in  Miss  Hurst's 
story-writing  success;  she  has  mastered  the  mechanics 
of  emotion;  she  makes  a  strong  human  appeal. 

August  6,  1916,  The  New  York  Times  Magazine 
published  an  interview  which  Joyce  Kilmer — now 
among  the  great  dead  of  poet-warriors — had  enjoyed 
with  Fannie  Hurst.  At  that  time,  Miss  Hurst  said, 
"Up  to  the  present  moving  pictures  have  been  little 
else  than  a  destructive  force  where  American  fiction  is 
concerned.  Picturized  fiction  is  on  a  cheap  and  sen 
sational  level.  .  .  .  Motion  pictures  are  in  the  hands  of 
the  laymen  and  they  show  it.  The  scenario  writers, 
so-called  ^staff-writers/  have  sprung  up  over-night,  so 
to  speak,  and  from  what  I  understand,  when  authors 
venture  into  the  field  they  are  at  the  mercy  of  the 
moving  picture  director." 


FANNIE  HURST  245 

Either  the  motion  picture  has  advanced  or  Miss 
Hurst's  ideals  have  capitulated.  The  growth  of  the 
one  is  well-known,  but  not  better  known  than  Miss 
Hurst's  devotion  to  art  as  she  sees  it.  She  has  refused 
tempting  offers  again  and  again  to  work  for  six-figured 
salaries  where  the  glitter  of  her  name  would  undoubt 
edly  compensate  in  a  short  time  the  seemingly  reckless, 
proposition  makers;  for  she  has  questioned  the  effect 
on  her  writing.  She  refused  a  magazine  assignment 
to  hob-nob  with  the  Queen  of  a  realm  in  a  not  alto 
gether  far-country  and  to  write  stories  centering  about 
her  and  the  Great  War — because,  again,  she  doubted 
the  effect  of  the  shift  in  style  and  method  on  her  own 
sway  in  the  realm  of  art.  "There  are  those  for  whom 
I  seem  to  have  a  message,"  she  says,  "and  that,  even 
in  its  lowest  realization,  is  tinctured  with  the  sub 
lime."  She  would  keep  her  message  and  let  the  money 
go.  And  because  this  is  true,  she  retains  also  the 
shekels.  The  integrity  of  her  art  will  not  fail  her. 

That  she  delayed  her  entry  into  film-land  exemplifies 
her  good  judgment.  For  whereas  her  sympathetic  in 
terpretations  of  Jewish  life  might  easily  have  degener 
ated  through  poor  scenario  handling,  they  now  suffer 
small  loss  through  the  comparative  present  adequacy 
of  the  motion  picture. 

But  back  to  1911.  Between  that  epoch-making  date 
and  the  present,  Miss  Hurst's  way  has  been  ideal  for 
one  of  her  chosen  work.  She  continues  to  make  New 
York  her  play-ground.  She  has  lived  in  many  sec- 


246        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

tions  of  the  city,  once  occupying  the  house  at  108 
Waverly  Place,  without  having  lived  in  which,  it  might 
seem,  no  American  writer  may  be  sure  of  clasping  the 
golden  horn  of  success.  She  has  had  quarters  in 
Carnegie  Hall;  she  has  lived  in  West  End  Avenue; 
and  again  maintained  her  studio  in  West  59th  Street, 
hard  by  the  Plaza.  She  has  taken,  when  the  spirit 
moved  her,  her  maid,  her  dogs  and  her  typewriter  and 
gone  a-traveling  to  the  Adirondacks,  to  the  Rockies 
or  to  Sorrento,  for  a  week  or  a  month  at  a  time.  By 
this  escape  from  routine  she  has  never  found  staleness 
in  the  city,  where  still  her  genius  is  whetted  to  sharpest 
writing  point. 

After  her  first  run  in  The  Saturday  Evening  Post, 
which  introduced  her  to  millions  of  readers,  she  signed 
up  for  a  number  of  stories  delivered  duly  to  The  Met- 
ropolitan.  Later,  she  went  over  to  The  Cosmopolitan. 
And  her  work  has  grown  as  she  has  written.  It  runs 
true  to  form,  but  always  toward  a  larger  and  com- 
pleter  self-expression,  which  is  yet  obstrusively  none 
because  it  is  lost  in  the  objectivity  of  her  drama.  And 
that  is  as  should  be,  always,  for  the  writer  of  fiction, 
as  for  other  artists. 

Four  volumes  of  her  tales  have  been  collected  and 
published  by  Harper's.  The  first  of  these  (1914) 
uses  the  significant  part  of  O.  Henry's  dictum  that 
there  may  be  a  good  story  "just  around  the  corner  " 
Of  this  collection,  the  best  is  The  Good  Provider, 
though  all  are  of  a  quality  so  high  as  to  draw  the 


FANNIE  HURST  247 

ever-easy  criticism  that  her  first  work  is  her  best.  It 
is  odd  that  this  bromide  should  be  uttered  anew  against 
every  writer.  It  is  damning  in  itself  of  those  who 
speak  it.  It  means  a  blunted  perception  to  distinction. 
A  writer  of  short-stories  should  stand  for  a  definite 
style,  mood,  and  recognizable  types  of  character;  and 
this  is  by  no  means  to  say  a  thin-worn  repetition  of  the 
same  theme  or  the  immediate  individual. 

Shortly  after  the  publication  of  her  first  book,  Fan 
nie  Hurst  was  married,  in  the  presence  of  necessary 
witnesses  and  a  friend  or  two,  at  Lakewood,  New  Jer 
sey,  to  Jacques  S.  Danielson,  pianist  and  composer. 
For  five  years  they  kept  their  marriage  quiet;  and  if 
other  friends  guessed  it  than  those  to  whom  they  re 
vealed  it,  all  alike  respected  her  desire  that  nothing  was 
to  be  said  about  it.  When,  therefore,  on  May  4,  1920, 
it  was  at  length  announced  in  the  newspapers  of  the 
metropolis,  there  was  a  stir  which  lasted  more  than  the 
usual  nine  days. 

"Pray  why,"  one  may  inquire,  "did  she  wish  to  keep 
it  secret?"  Since  her  step  may  become  historic,  and 
since  on  the  other  hand  the  reasons  for  it  may  become 
lost  in  the  mist  of  memory,  it  may  be  worth  while  to 
set  down  here  a  recapitulation,  or  summary,  of  her 
own  stated  reasons : 

"When  I  met  Jacques  Danielson,  I  found  my 
youthful  determination  that  marriage  was  not  for  me 
suddenly  undermined.  But  my  determination  that 
marriage  should  never  lessen  my  capacity  for  creative 


248        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

work  or  pull  me  down  into  a  sedentary  state  of  fat- 
mindedness  was  not  undermined  ...  I  made  certain 
resolutions  concerning  what  my  marriage  should  not 
be. 

"First  of  all,  I  am  anxious  to  emphasize  that  our 
marriage  was  neither  the  result  of  a  fad  or  'ism,'  but 
simply  the  working  out  of  a  problem  according  to  the 
highly  specialized  needs  of  two  professional  people. 

"...  We  decided  that  our  marriage  should  in  no 
wise  interfere  with  my  work  or  my  studies  .  .  .  We 
decided  to  live  separately,  maintaining  our  individual 
studio  apartments,  and  meeting  as  per  inclination,  not 
duty. 

"...  We  have  maintained  our  separate  group  of 
friends. 

"We  decided  that  the  antediluvian  custom  of  a 
woman  casting  aside  the  name  that  had  become  as 
much  a  part  of  her  personality  as  the  color  of  her  eyes 
had  neither  rime  nor  reason.  I  was  born  Fannie 
Hurst  and  I  expect  to  die  Fannie  Hurst. 

"We  decided  that,  in  the  event  of  offspring,  the  child 
should  take  the  paternal  name,  until  reaching  the  age 
of  discretion,  when  the  decision  would  lie  with  him. 

"We  decided  that  accounting  for  our  time  to  one 
another  would  prove  irksome  and  for  five  years  have 
enjoyed  our  personal  liberty  precisely  as  we  did  before 
marriage,  using,  rather  than  abusing,  the  unusual  priv 
ileges  we  grant  one  another." 

If  the  plan  did  not  "work/'  they  would  at  the  end 


FANNIE  HURST  249 

of  a  year  go  quietly  apart.  "The  one  year  has  stretched 
into  five  and — well,  we  are  announcing  instead  of  an 
nulling.'* 

"We  live  separately  and  shall  continue  to  do  so." 

Every  Soul  Hath  Its  Song  appeared  in  October, 
1916,  containing  nine  stories,  the  most  remarkable  of 
which  is  Sob  Sister.  The  Times  reviewer  expressed 
the  opinion  of  best  critics  when  he  wrote  of  it,  "It  is 
brutal  but  it  is  also  strong,  a  bit  of  realism  that  grips 
in  every  line  of  its  tense  dialogue,  in  its  impassive 
objectivity."  "The  collection  reveals,  even  more 
strongly  than  her  first  book,  her  ability  to  make  all  her 
characters  do  the  work.  She  places  them  upon  the 
stage,  with  an  East  Side  or  a  Riverside  background; 
they  stand  up  and  march  and  play  their  parts.* 

Gaslight  Sonatas  was  published  April,  1918.  Its  chief 
new  contribution  is  that  of  propaganda  in  behalf  of 
the  War  Cause.  Bitter-Sweet  opens  the  volume,  a 
propaganda  story  circulated  in  separate  form  after  its 
first  publication  in  the  Cosmopolitan.  Sieve  of  Ful 
filment  and — the  best  of  the  seven — Get  Ready  the 
Wreaths  also  strike  the  war  note.  This  "sonata"  ring 
is  extended  into  her  next  volume,  Humoresque,  pub 
lished  March,  1919. 

It  will  have  been  noticed  that  three  of  her  four  vol- 

*  By  an  odd  contradiction,  her  people  transferred  to  the  boards 
have  not  succeeded  so  well.  The  Good  Provider  failed  to  hold 
its  audience,  as  did  also  a  later  venture.  The  Land  of  the  Free. 
She  will  probably  yet  conquer  the  technique  of  the  drama  as  she 
has  that  of  the  story. 


250        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

urnes  draw  upon  music  for  their  titles.  In  Humor- 
esque  she  has  popularized  the  song  as  Dr.  Van  Dyke's 
Humoresque  failed  to  do ;  in  Star-Dust,  her  first  novel 
(published  1920),  she  accidentally  repeated  a  title 
used  by  Jack  London  in  an  essay  (recorded  in 
Chapter  XXIII  of  Martin  Eden).  With  these  excep 
tions,  and  a  possible  one  or  two  others,  her  stories  are 
christened  with  a  novel  freshness. 

Fannie  Hurst  has  been  called,  by  some  critics, 
the  immediate  descendant  of  O.  Henry.  It  is  quite 
likely  that  not  one  writer  who  learned  the  tools 
of  his  trade  after  1900  has  been  able  to  avoid  the 
influence  of  the  most  American  of  short-story  writers 
of  the  first  twentieth  century  decade.  His  tricks  of 
epigram,  caustic  humor,  surprise,  and  his  real  democ 
racy  are  too  inimitable  to  escape  imitation.  But  to 
Miss  Hurst  has  fallen  only  a  due  portion  of  his  spirit. 
Her  "beat"  is  not  his  beat;  her  length  of  story  is  not 
his  length.  She  works  on  a  larger  canvas.  Her  sen 
tence  rhythm  is  staccato;  his  deliberate  and  even  lazy. 
If  Fannie  Hurst  could  not  have  written  his  terse  After 
Twenty  Years,  neither  could  O.  Henry  have  achieved 
the  epic,  Get  Ready  the  Wreaths.  The  ending  of 
Heads  has  back  of  it  the  stunning  denouements  of  O. 
Henry,  admittedly;  but  also  back  of  it — and  him — 
Aldrich  and  de  Maupassant. 

Her  first  noteworthy  characteristic  lies  in  a  minute 
ness  and  picturesqueness  of  description,  which  any 


FANNIE  HURST  251 

one  of  her  stories  will  illustrate.  Take,  for  example, 
the  first  paragraph  of  Power  and  Horse-Power,  the 
first  story  in  her  first  volume :  "In  the  Knickerbocker 
Hotel  there  are  various  parlors ;  Pompeian  rooms  lined 
in  marble  and  pillared  in  chaste-fluted  columns;  Louis 
Quinze  corners,  gold-leafed  and  pink-brocaded,  prin 
cipally  furnished  with  a  Verms-Martin  cabinet  and  a 
large  French  clock  in  the  form  of  a  celestial  sphere 
surmounted  by  a  gold  cupid."  And  so  on,  for  a  hun 
dred  words  or  so,  she  takes  you  through  the  parlors, 
trailing  off  with  the  one  where  the  manicurist,  Miss 
Gertrude  Sprunt,  presides.  By  the  time  you  have  con 
sumed  a  half  minute  in  walking  through  the  domain 
you  are  acquainted  with  the  lay-out  and  ready  for  the 
heroine. 

Or  turn  to  her  latest  volume  and  to  the  tale  of  freaks, 
Even  as  You  and  I.  Read  the  word  picture  of  the  fat 
lady  and  refrain,  if  you  can,  from  following  her  for 
tune  to  the  close :  "What  matters  it  that  her  skin  was 
not  without  the  rich  quality  of  cream  too  thick  to  pour, 
when  her  arms  fairly  dimpled  and  billowed  of  this 
creaminess,  and  above  her  rather  small  ankles  her 
made-to-order  red  satin  shoes  bulged  over  it,  the  low- 
cut  bosom  of  her  red  and  sequin  dress  was  a  terrific 
expanse  of  it,  her  small  hands  cushions  of  it,  her  throat 
quivery  and  her  walk  a  waddle  with  it.  ...  Between 
her  eyes  and  upper  lip,  Miss  Hoag  looked  her  just 
turned  twenty;  beyond  them,  she  was  antediluvian, 


252        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

deluged,  smothered,  beneath  the  creamy  billows  and 
billows  of  self." 

Her  second  characteristic  is  the  accomplishment  of 
a  purpose.  To  suggest  a  need  or  a  remedy  or  to  open 
a  reader's  eyes  and  to  do  it  so  skillfully  he  does  not 
know  he  has  been  "treated"  is  effectively  to  combine 
art  with  propaganda.  The  Other  Cheek  illustrates 
as  well  as  any  of  her  tales  this  distinguishing  mark: 

"Besides,  hers  were  the  problems  of  the  six-million 
dollar  incorporateds,  who  hire  girls  for  six  dollars  a 
week;  for  the  small-eyed,  large-diamoned  birds  of 
prey  who  haunt  the  glove  counters  and  lace  depart 
ments  of  the  six  million  dollar  incorporateds  with  in 
vitations  to  dinner;  and  for  the  night  courts,  which 
are  struggling  to  stanch  the  open  gap  of  the  social 
wound  with  medicated  gauze  instead  of  a  tight  tour 
niquet." 

A  third  striking  feature  lies  in  her  ornamentations : 
mythological  allusions,  ancient  history  references,  fig 
ures  drawn  from  science :  "At  Sixth  Avenue,  where 
the  great  skeleton  of  the  Elevated  stalks  mid-street, 
like  a  prehistoric  pithecanthropus  erectus,  he  paused 
for  an  instant  in  the  shadow  of  a  gigantic  black  pillar," 
etc.  (Hers  Not  to  Reason  Why).  Some  critic  leaped 
fervently  upon  this  long-named  beast,  crying  out  that 
he  was  smallish.  But  the  answering  critic  was  right : 
the  shape  of  the  prehistoric  creature  and  the  sound  of 
his  name  carry  over  the  idea  needed. 

From  Heads:     "By  the  great  order  of  things  which 


FANNIE  HURST  253 

decreed  that  about  the  time  Herod,  brother  to  no  man, 
died,  Jesus,  brother  to  all  men,  should  be  born;  and 
that  Rabelais,  moral  jester,  should  see  light  the  very 
year  that  Louis  XI  passed  on,"  etc. 

From  Marked  Down:  "Daphne  fleeing  from  Apollo 
could  not  have  been  more  deliciously  agitated,"  etc. 

This  sort  of  one  thing,  one  argues,  is  too  simple.  A 
learned  reference  may  be  dragged  in  with  a  peculiarly 
showy  effect.  But  it  is  part  of  her  work  and  pleasure 
— the  study  of  the  past — and  one  of  the  paradoxes  that 
mark  her  throbbing  reflection  of  the  present.  Rather 
it  is  the  background  against  which  she  sets  off  the 
present,  and  by  virtue  of  which  it  exists.  Her  study, 
furnished  in  Italian  pre-renaissance  style,  has  the  asce 
ticism  of  Savonarola's;  most  frequently  to  be  found  on 
her  desk  under  the  wide  sky-light  are  those  volumes 
which  are  the  heritage  of  the  past. 

The  short-stories  of  Fannie  Hurst  illustrate  happily 
the  best  artistry  to  be  found  in  present-day  conte  writ 
ing.  Each  develops  in  a  series  of  perfectly  selected 
scenes,  vivid,  picturesque,  staged  with  accessories  of 
time  and  place,  which,  to  the  minutest  detail,  reflect  the 
operations  of  life.  Her  men  and  women  exemplify  in 
their  personalities  the  creative  faculty  of  their  author, 
a  faculty  working  as  life  works,  not  to  copy  the  al 
ready  existing,  but  with  infinite  variety  to  produce  new 
specimens  of  their  kind. 

So  Leon  Kantor  of  Humoresque  lives,  a  distinct  cre 
ation,  like  his  brothers  in  the  flesh,  keenly  aware  of  a 


254        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

compulsion  to  keep  a  rendezvous  with  death;  but  al 
ways  himself — Leon  Kantor.  So  Hester  of  Back  Pay 
lives;  one  of  a  sad,  eternal  sisterhood,  but  alone,  dis 
tinct,  Hester. 

Her  characters  move  in  a  kingdom  of  their  own, 
not  burlesque,  not  caricature;  for  the  author  sympa 
thizes.  .Whatever  the  reader's  cause  for  laughter,  it 
works  in  the  most  objective  way.  One  might  ask,  "Does 
Miss  Hurst  know  this  is  funny?"  And  she  might  an 
swer,  "I've  nothing  to  do  with  his  being  either  laugh 
able  or  pathetic.  Don't  accuse  me  of  pulling  'sob- 
stuff'  or  slanting  toward  humor.  I'm  interested  in 
things  as  they  are." 

Technical  excellence,  excellence  that  comes  after 
years  of  study  and  practice,  reveals  itself  in  well- 
wrought  structure  not  less  than  in  distinguished  style. 
Nobody  will  gainsay  that  Miss  Hurst  is  a  stylist.  If 
any  one  is  marked  by  a  difference,  that  one  is  Fannie 
Hurst.  The  architectural  values,  moreover,  are  well- 
nigh  flawless.  Her  stories  are  well  constructed  from 
starting  point  to  climax  of  action. 

It  is  an  old  story  now,  that  of  the  French  engineer 
whose  three  successive  exclamations  marked  his  grad 
ual  approach  to  Brooklyn  Bridge.  But  the  triple  truth 
is  still  true  and  equally  true  when  applied  to  a  story  by 
Fannie  Hurst:  "How  beautiful!  How  well-made! 
How  well  thought  out !" 

"No  one  with  the  love  of  the  grotesque  which  is  the 
American  portion  of  the  human  tastes  or  passions," 


FANNIE  HURST  255 

wrote  William  Dean  Howells,  "can  fail  of  his  joy  in 
the  play  of  the  obvious  traits  and  motives  of  her  He 
brew  comedy,  but  he  will  fail  of  something  precious 
if  he  does  not  sound  the  depths  of  true  and  beautiful 
feeling  which  underlies  the  comedy." 
Volumes  of  stories  by  Miss  Hurst: 

Just  Around  the  Corner,  1914. 
Every  Soul  Hath  Its  Song,  1916. 
Gaslight  Sonatas,  1918. 
Humor  esque,  1919. 


CHAPTER  XV 

JACK  LONDON 

JACK  LONDON  died  November  22,   1916.     In 
the  years  that  have  elapsed  he  has  suffered  both 
praise  and  damnation;  in  the  future,  if  only  the 
topmost  peaks  are  too  high  for  him,  only  the  lowest 
depths  will  be  too  low.     There  will  be  a  necessary 
divergence  over  the  quality  o-f  his  work  dependent 
fundamentally  upon  the  difference  between  age  and 
youth,   conservatism  and   radicalism,   literary  attain 
ment  and  narrative  value.    A  short-story  critic  and  a 
.jort-story  lover  will  pronounce  Jack  London  engag- 
mg,  thrilling  and  satisfactory.    The  critic  of  literature, 
concerned  not  primarily  about  the  success  of  a  par 
ticular  genre  or  type,  but  about  expression  and  large 
content  will  declare  him  at  best  a  third  rate  writer. 

He  cannot  be  ignored.  George  Wharton  James 
stated  the  simple  truth  (The  Overland,  May,  1917), 
when  he  remarked:  "For  good  or  evil  he  has  made 
a  profound  impression  upon  his  generation."  Aside 
from  his  vogue  in  America,  he  is  the  most  popular 
foreign  author  in  Sweden  and  has  been  hailed  as  a 
prophet  in  Russia.  ' 

Opposing  forces  will  agree  upon  certain  essential 
256 


JACK  LONDON  257 

characteristics  of  his  forty-odd  volumes,  all  of  which 
were  published  within  the  space  of  twenty  years.  He 
was  a  pioneer  in  marking  out  unexploited  geographical 
areas  for  the  setting  and  action  of  his  narratives. 
He  was  the  first  to  entertain  us  with  tales  of  Alaska; 
and  the  increasing  number  of  his  followers,  from  Rex 
Beach  to  Oliver  Curwood,  testify  by  their  popularity 
that  he  evaluated  correctly  the  definite  appeal  of  the 
frozen  North.  The  struggle  it  offered  to  civilized  man, 
through  its  ice  and  snow  and  primeval  beasts  and 
primitive  races,  he  seized  and  wrought  into  brief  epics. 
Nor  is  he,  with  an  exception  or  two,  less  the  pioneer 
in  the  South  Seas.  It  is  true  that  Herman  Melville, 
and,  later,  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  had  introduced  the 
region  to  nineteenth  century  readers.  But  never  had 
they  popularized,  in  short-story  form,  tropical  islands 
and  equatorial  seas  and  the  men  who  dwell  upon  them. 
Conrad  was  to  surpass  him,  in  his  own  day,  in  depth 
and  magnificence  but  not  in  clearness  and  vividness  of 
narrative  action.  And  it  would  be  difficult  to  estimate 
his  influence  upon  current  writers,  such  as  Frederick 
O'Brien  of  White  Shadows  fame.  Jack  London, 
then,  struck  a  circle  through  the  extremes  of  heat 
and  cold ;  he  made  the  area  his  own,  but  gained  con 
trast  and  picturesqueness  by  emphasizing  the  territory 
near  the  extremes. 

He  celebrated  the  physical  prowess  of  man  as  per 
haps  no  other  short-story  author  has  ever  succeeded 
in  doing.  Whether  mushing  on  over  an  endless  trail 


258       OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

against  the  forces  of  hunger,  disease,  wild  animals 
and  arctic  cold ;  or  whether  wrestling  with  the  typhoon 
in  a  summer  sea,  while  small  pox  and  mutiny  rage 
aboard  ship,  his  heroes  valiantly  battle  and  endure.  \S 

In  the  realm  of  pure  spirit,  however,  Mr.  London 
rarely  finds  himself.  His  problems  of  morality  and 
ethics  arise  from  the  physical  struggle  or  lead  to  it. 
The  subtlety  of  a  Henry  James  temptation  or  an 
Edith  Wharton  punishment  would  mean  nothing  to 
his  sturdy  and  vigorous  characters.  Fancy  Wolf  Lar- 
sen  substituted  for  Ethan  Frome — but  the  hypothesis 
is  inconceivable. 

Perhaps  the  deficiency  just  indicated  explains  why 
he  has  added  not  one  living  character  to  our  litera 
ture.  He  photographed  and  created  men;  but  they 
are  men  among  others.  And  if,  as  has  been  said, 
his  Indians  rank  with  Fenimore  Cooper's,  it  is  as 
a  class,  not  because  of  Chingachgook  or  Uncas  excep 
tions.  And  if,  as  again  has  been  said,  he  liked  psy 
chology  but  wrote  adventure  because  the  editors  wanted 
it,  the  truth  is  that  he  followed  his  bent  and  his  ability. 
He  emphasized  action,  not  without  ideas  and  themes 
as  we  shall  presently  illustrate;  but  he  overlooked  the 
workings  of  the  human  soul. 

Over  his  style  opinions  also  differ.  He  is  radical 
or  refreshing,  according  to  the  point  of  view.  He 
frequently  uses  English  in  a  way  that  shocks,  even 
though  into  admiration.  Verbs  for  nouns  and  nouns 
for  verbs  he  interchanges  when  he  sees  fit.  "He 


JACK  LONDON  259 

muscled  his  body  down  into  the  hole"  is  peculiarly 
vivid  to  a  reader  interested  in  the  act;  it  is  a  dis 
torted  mannerism  to  one  observant  of  expression. 
But  the  chances  are  that  he  will  prove  to  have  been 
one  of  the  first  by  whom  the  new  are  tried ;  one  whom 
others  will  approach,  not  from  whom  they  will  depart. 

Jack  London  was  born  in  San  Francisco,  January 
12,  1876,  the  youngest  of  ten  children.  A  significant 
characteristic  of  his  immediate  ancestry  was  the  no 
madism  of  his  father.  Trapper  and  scout,  John  Lon 
don  transmitted  to  his  son  a  spirit  of  adventure  which 
carried  him  to  the  far  places  of  the  earth.  Important, 
too,  in  explaining  the  boy's  character  was  the  racial 
variety  of  his  progenitors:  English,  Welsh,  Dutch, 
Swiss,  French  and  German— all  combined  to  produce 
a  unique  and  yet  a  representative  American.  And  he 
worshiped  the  Anglo-Saxon,  in  comparison  with  whom 
he  recognized  certain  lesser  breeds  without  the  law. 

For  the  first  nine  years  of  his  existence  he  lived 
in  Oakland,  in  Alameda,  near  the  Coast  in  San  Mateo 
County,  and  in  Livermore.  His  childhood  might  have 
been  embittered  by  poverty;  but  he  escaped  through 
a  dual  life,  outwardly  poor  and  rough,  inwardly  re 
flective  and  contemplative.  His  passion  for  romance 
early  created  for  him  a  world  of  his  own.  "Read 
Ouida's  Signa"  he  advises.  "I  read  it  at  the  age  of 
eight.  The  story  begins:  'It  was  only  a  little  lad/ 
The  little  lad  was  an  Italian  mountain  peasant.  He 


2<5o        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

became  an  artist  with  all  Italy  at  his  feet.  When 
I  read  it,  I  was  a  little  peasant  on  a  poor  California 
ranch.  Reading  the  story,  my  narrow  hill-horizon 
was  pushed  back,  and  all  the  world  was  made  pos 
sible  if  I  would  dare  it.  I  dared." 

At  an  early  age  he  read,  also,  Trowbridge,  Paul  du 
Chaillu's  Travels,  Captain  Cook's  Voyages,  and  Wash 
ington  Irving.  Even  before  he  was  ten  he  wished  he 
might  be  a  writer.  His  mother  once  urged  him  to 
try  for  a  prize  offered  by  The  Call  for  a  descriptive 
article  of  1000  words  or  less  .  He  wrote  2000  the 
first  evening,  but  later  cut  to  the  required  length 
and  wron  the  prize. 

Between  the  ages  of  eight  or  nine  and  fourteen  he 
sold  papers,  worked  in  the  canneries,  the  jute  mills, 
and  the  power-house.  At  the  same  time  he  man 
aged  to  secure  the  beginnings  of  an  education. 

On  his  graduation  from  grammar  school  he  entered 
upon  an  adventurous  career  on  San  Francisco  Bay. 
Down  on  the  water-front,  he  underwent  experiences 
which  later  furnished  material  for  Tales  of  the  Fish 
Patrol  and  gained  for  him  the  sobriquet,  The  Prince 
of  the  Oyster  Pirates.  In  these  years  he  learned  to 
handle  a  schooner  and  to  acquire  the  seamanship  which 
enabled  him,  a  self-taught  navigator,  many  years  later 
to  sail  the  Snark  across  the  Pacific. 

At  fourteen  or  fifteen  he  became  interested  in  soci 
ology  and  from  his  street  corner  harangues  was  known 
a,s  The  Boy  Socialist. 


JACK  LONDON  261 

In  1892  he  turned  tramp,  compelled  not  through 
his  study  of  sociology;  but,  as  he  himself  wrote,  "be 
cause  of  the  life  that  was  in  me,  of  the  wanderlust 
in  my  blood  that  would  not  let  me  rest."  The  imme 
diate  motivation  he  recounts  in  The  Road,  in  the  chap 
ter  entitled  Road  Kids  and  Gay-Cats.  From  his  first 
monica,  "Sailor  Kid/'  he  passed  to  "Frisco  Kid"  and 
at  length  to  "Sailor  Jack." 

Concluding  this  first  tramp  experience,  which  led 
him  over  many  of  the  States  and  Canada,  he  said: 
"The  Road  had  gripped  me  and  would  not  let  me  go ; 
and  when  later  I  had  voyaged  to  sea  and  done  one 
thing  and  another,  I  returned  to  the  Road  to  make 
longer  flights,  to  be  a  'comet'  and  a  profesh,  and  to 
plump  into  the  bath  of  sociology  that  wet  me  to  the 
skin." 

The  sea-voyage  to  which  he  refers  is  the  one  made 
in  1893,  when  he  shipped  before  the  mast,  on  the 
Sophie  Sutherland,  to  Japan.  There  he  caught  the 
spell  of  the  Orient  which  gripped  him  forcibly  in  after 
years  and  held  him  in  the  South  Sea  Islands.  "I 
looked  on  the  world  and  called  it  good,"  he  wrote,  in 
The  War  of  the  Classes,  of  his  life  at  this  time. 

After  he  came  back  from  his  voyage  to  the  East 
he  wandered  over  America  by  the  under-beam  route. 
He  set  out  in  the  spring  of  1894  with  General  Kelly's 
Army  of  Protest  two  thousand  strong,  and  ended, 
alone,  in  Niagara,  in  June,  where  he  was  arrested  as 
a  hobo  and  sent  to  prison.  The  extremities  he  suffered 


262       OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

in  the  Erie  County  Penitentiary  confirmed  and 
strengthened  his  socialistic  proclivities.  A  study  of 
his  life  at  this  period,  so  frankly  set  forth  in  The  Road, 
will  convince  the  reader  that  he  had  found  food  for 
thought,  even  while  he  roamed,  the  Playboy  of  the 
Western  World.  It  dawned  upon  him  that  he  was 
eighteen  years  of  age,  that  he  was  beneath  the  point 
at  which  he  had  started,  and  that  he  was  down  in  the 
cellar  of  society.  He  had  learned  that  muscle  and 
brain  have  selling  values  and  that  the  latter  brings 
more.  He  determined  to  be  a  vender  of  brains. 

In  the  brief  space  from  the  fall  of  1894  to  the 
spring  of  1897,  not  quite  three  years,  were  compressed 
the  training  and  preparation  most  men  of  fair  edu 
cation  require  ten  years  to  cover.  His  first  step 
was  to  enter  the  Oakland  High  School,  where  he 
maintained  himself  by  a  janitor's  work.  He  remained 
only  three  months.  With  the  fervor  of  one  who 
comprehends  suddenly  the  value  of  time,  he  recog 
nized  the  need  for  haste  and  set  out  to  reach  the 
University  by  the  shortest  route.  He  was  distant 
from  it  two  years.  But  there  was  a  training  school, 
Anderson's  Academy,  which  offered  preparation.  Jack 
London  became  the  scandal  of  the  Academy  by  accom 
plishing  in  four  months  an  incredible  amount  of  work. 
His  tuition  was  returned  and  he  was  requested  to 
leave,  since  he  would  discredit  the  place  by  his  per 
formance.  He  then  studied  alone,  nineteen  and  twenty 


JACK  LONDON  263 

hours  a  day,  without  equipment  save  books  and  his 
imagination. 

His  new  life  gave  him  friends  of  a  different  "set." 
He  met  Bessie  Maddern,  her  friend  Fred  Jacobs  the 
librarian,  and  Mabel  Applegarth.  Mabel  introduced 
him  to  poetry;  he  "grew  drunk  with  Swinburne  and 
mad  with  Verlaine."  He  devoured  the  libraries.  TJie 
Age  of  Fable,  Emerson's  Essays,  Paine's  Rights  of 
Man,  Montaigne,  Kant  and  Schopenhauer  represent 
the  diversity  of  his  reading.  And  he  was  writing 
stories,  impossible  romances  most  of  them,  but  all  help 
ing  him  to  a  mastery  of  his  tools.  He  crammed  the 
two  years'  course  in  three  months  and  passed  the  Uni 
versity  examinations. 

He  was  not  to  remain  at  Berkeley,  however,  for 
more  than  part  of  his  Freshman  year.  He  worked  in 
a  laundry  and  with  his  pen;  but  the  task  was  too 
great.  The  support  of  his  mother's  family  fell  upon 
him.  He  left  the  University,  not  to  return.  When 
the  elder  London  once  more  found  work,  the  boy 
continued  his  Blickensdorfer  efforts.  Perhaps  he  had 
reached,  already,  the  conclusion  that  "reading  Chaucer 
doesn't  teach  any  one  to  write,"  and  that  only  by 
practice  comes  success.  It  should  be  remembered  that 
all  along  he  was  under  the  necessity  of  making  a  liveli 
hood  for  himself  and  sometimes  for  others. 

The  first  chapters  of  Martin  Eden  reflect  faithfully 
the  spirit  of  his  life  in  1894  and  1895,  if  not  always 
the  actual  events.  He  has  been  described  by  one  who 


264        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

knew  him  then  as  having  a  radiant  personality  and 
abounding  in  life  energy. 

In  1897  he  joined  the  rush  to  the  Klondike.  In 
the  late  summer  he  landed  at  Dyea  Beach  and  entered 
upon  his  heritage.  He  found  in  the  Alaskan  wastes 
the  material  upon  which  to  exercise  his  craft,  his 
skill  acquired  through  training  rigorous  and  difficult, 
and  he  found  himself.  "There  nobody  talks.  Every 
body  thinks.  You  get  your  true  perspective.  I  got 
mine.0  After  a  year,  with  characteristic  decision  he 
set  sail  in  an  open  boat  and  stoked  his  way  over  the 
nineteen  hundred  miles  to  San  Francisco. 

In  1898  he  was  where  he  had  started,  but  with  a 
definite  acquisition.  While  he  labored  to  support  the 
family  at  cutting  wood  and  shoveling  coal,  he  wrote, 
widened  his  reading  and  fell  in  with  his  former 
friends.  Herman  Whitaker  and  George  Sterling 
were  the  men  who  meant  most  to  him  in  those 
days;  and  he  saw  much  of  Bessie  Maddern,  whose 
fiance,  young  Jacobs,  had  died.  His  interest  in  biology 
and  philosophy  deepened  through  study  of  Darwin, 
Hegel,  Kant,  Huxley,  Berkeley,  Hume  and  Nietzsche. 
But  the  important  fact  is  that  he  was  writing,  and 
in  less  than  six  months  after  his  return  from  the 
Klondike  he  met  with  initial  success. 

The  Overland  bought  The  Man  on  Trail,  first  of  the 
Malemute  Kid  series,  then  The  White  Silence,  The 
Son  of  the  Wolf  and  eight  other  stories.  But  these, 
the  perfected  result  of  six  years'  work,  he  sold  for 


JACK  LONDON  265 

the  sum  of  fifty-three  dollars.  Even  this  amount  he 
had  difficulty  in  collecting  if  Martin's  adventures  with 
the  editors  of  The  Transcontinental  (in  Chapter 
XXXIII  of  Martin  Eden)  are  at  all  representative 
of  the  facts.  The  Black  Cat  paid  him  forty  dollars 
for  A  Thousand  Deaths  (published,  May,  1899).  But 
they  took  nothing  else  from  him.  He  began  to  fear 
that  he  was  beaten.  And  then  came  a  check  from 
The  Atlantic  Monthly,  a  check  for  one  hundred  and 
seventy-five  dollars.  It  meant  the  sharp  dramatic 
climax  of  his  career. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-four  Jack  London  had  crossed 
the  threshold  of  the  literary  life  and  was  shortly  to 
find  his  seat  among  the  elect.  Life  should  have  ap 
peared  brighter.  On  April  7,  1900,  he  married  Bessie 
Maddern.  His  first  book  was  about  to  appear  with 
the  imprint  of  a  long-established  house.  His  publish 
ers  had  advanced  funds  to  maintain  him  while  he 
wrote,  and  he  was  writing  regularly  one  thousand 
words  a  day.  (It  is  worth  noting  that  he  never  after 
wards  departed  from  this  craftsman's  habit.)  He  had 
arrived  at  his  own  interpretation  of  life  and  at  a 
credo  he  was  to  exemplify  throughout  his  works : 
Reason  rules  the  universe;  all  life  is  related  to  biology; 
courage,  love  and  loyalty  form  a  trinity  than  which 
nothing  is  more  divine.  He  maintained  his  friendship 
with  Sterling,  Anna  Strunsky  and  others  of  his  social 
istic  group.  By  comparison  with  the  past,  surely  he 
had  every  cause  for  happiness.  But  at  the  dawn  of 


266        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

his  new  life,  he  grew  morbid.  "Inarticulate  discon 
tent  awoke  in  his  soul."  The  Daughter  of  the  Snows 
written  at  this  time  reveals  the  struggle  between  his 
own  instincts  and  those  about  him.  The  publishers 
refused  it;  he  owed  those  publishers  more  than  a 
thousand  dollars,  and  in  this  temporary  setback  his 
first  daughter  was  born,  January,  1901.  He  wrote 
unceasingly,  buoyed  by  Whitaker  and  Sterling,  until 
the  outbreak  of  the  Boer  War.  Then  he  started  to 
Africa,  stopped  in  New  York,  and  ended  by  investigat 
ing  the  London  slums. 

He  came  back  to  Piedmont,  still  out  of  harmony 
with  the  world,  but  persisted  doggedly  at  his  writing. 
His  family  relations  were  strained;  he  continued  his 
friendship  with  Charmian  Kittredge,  a  friendship  that 
had  begun  with  the  publication  of  his  first  novel. 
Meantime,  his  volumes  were  appearing:  The  God  of 
His  Fathers,  1901;  A  Daughter  of  the  Snows,  1902; 
Children  of  the  Frost,  1902 ;  The  Cruise  of  the  Dossier, 
1902.  Of  these,  Children  of  the  Frost  is  most  signifi 
cant  with  respect  to  the  sum  total  of  the  author's  ac 
complishment.  It  contains  many  of  his  best  North 
Country  stories,  and  notably  the  one  Jack  London 
liked  most  of  all  his  narratives :  The  League  of  the  Old 
~~  Mm.  In  1903  appeared  People  of  the  Abyss,  which 
embodied  the  results  of  his  vagabond  life  in  London. 
It  has  been  compared  favorably  with  General  Booth's 
Submerged  Tenth;  the  two  authors  speak  with  au 
thority,  from  different  angles,  of  conditions  too  fre- 


JACK  LONDON  267 

quently  skimmed  by  the  dilettante  in  letters  and  life. 
The  People  of  the  Abyss  vividly  describes  scenes  which 
filled  the  author  with  a  fierce  passion  for  the  down 
trodden. 

In  1903  appeared,  also,  The  Kempton-Wace  Letters, 
which  grew  out  of  the  correspondence  between  Jack 
London  and  Anna  Strunsky.  And,  then,  in  the  same 
year,  The  Call  of  the  Wild. 

Upon  the  publication  of  the  last-named  the  author 
found  himself  famous.  The  Saturday  Evening  Post 
paid  seven  hundred  dollars  for  the  manuscript,  a  con 
siderable  sum  in  those  days;  Macmillan's  gave  two 
thousand  dollars  for  the  book  rights.  The  creator  of 
Buck  meant  to  illustrate  in  the  big  dog  the  Darwinian 
theory  of  reversion  to  type;  but  this  intention  escaped, 
perhaps  fortunately,  the  lay  reader  who  enjoyed  the 
fortunes  of  the  animal  hero  as  those  of  a  human 
being  and  who  was  concerned  only  about  the  external 
adventures.  The  fight  between  the  brutes  was  for 
nine  out  o>f  ten  a  capitally  described  dog-fight,  not, 
as  the  author  intended  it  symbolically,  a  case  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest.  Jack  London  may  have  been 
swept  to  success  on  the  Kipling  wave,  as  his  detractors 
assert  and  his  admirers  do  not  believe.  But  it  is 
undeniable  that  many  animal  stories  published  since 
1903  were  swept  into  publication  by  the  success  of 
The  Call  of  the  Wild. 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  Russo-Japanese  war  Jack 
London  set  sail  for  Japan,  hoping  to  serve  as  reporter, 


268        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

but  when  he  discovered  that  opportunity  was  lacking 
to  get  near  the  battle-front,  he  came  home.  He  was 
met  at  the  dock  by  a  lawyer  who  served  him  with 
papers  of  his  wife's  divorce  suit.  A  year  later  he 
married  Charmian  Kittredge, 

In  1905  he  planned  the  voyage  of  the  Snark  and 
began  to  build  the  schooner.  In  1906  he  was  writing 
in  Sonoma,  in  the  Valley  of  the  Moon.  By  September 
of  this  year  he  had  published  thirteen  books,  all 
done  in  five  years.  Yet,  again,  if  the  testimony  of 
Martin  Eden  is  acceptable,  much  of  this  successful  ma 
terial  must  have  been  on  hand  longer,  "work  per 
formed,"  as  Martin  said  bitterly. 

In  April,  1907,  the  Snark  was  ready;  on  the  25th 
he  and  his  wife,  with  a  small  crew,  set  sail  from  the 
Golden  Gate.  May  17,  1907,  they  sighted  Maui.  In 
June,  Mr.  London  showed  signs  of  serious  illness; 
but  they  remained  for  eighteen  months  in  the  land 
they  both  loved,  and  left  only  that  he  might  recuperate. 

Charmian  London  has  told  in  Our  Hazvaii  many  in 
teresting  details  of  life  there  and  of  her  husband's 
W0rk :  " — he  shrugs  his  wide  shoulders  under  the  blue 
kimono,  girds  the  fringed  white  obi  a  little  more 
snugly,  picks  up  a  note  pad  and  long  sharp  pencil  and 
makes  swift,  sprawling  notes  for  a  Klondike  yarn  on 
which  he  has  been  working,  To  Build  a  Fire.  This, 
staged  in  the  Frozen  North,  is  bound  to  captivate 
editors  and  public  alike,  who  think  every  other  sub 
ject  but  the  Klondike  out  of  his  'sphere/  "  So  she 


JACK  LONDON  269 

makes  entry  under  date  of  May  22,  1907,  rightly  com 
menting  upon  a  tale  which  in  the  judgment  of  many 
critics  is  his  best  story  of  the  arctic  regions. 

Again,  May  31 :  "He  is  commencing  an  article  on 
amateur  navigation,  for  Harpers,  which  he  calls  'Find 
ing  One's  Way  About';"  and,  July  n,  -Jack  has  lost 
no  time  finishing  the  promised  article,  The  Lepers  of 
MolokaiV  Repeatedly  she  quotes  his  "Mate,  are  you 
glad  you're  alive  ?"  indicative  of  his  happiness.  August 
21 :  "Jack  has  located  a  shady  corner  for  his  work,  out 
of  range  of  the  distracting  landscape,  and  is  swinging 
along  on  that  autobiographical  novel  he  has  so  long 
contemplated.  The  hero  is  'Martin  Eden'  and  the 
author  cannot  make  up  his  mind  whether  to  use  the 
euphonious  name  for  title,  or  call  the  book  'Success.'  " 

In  1908  he  visited  the  Solomon  Islands.  In  1912 
the  Londons  were  at  Seattle  after  five  months  of 
wind-jamming  from  Baltimore  around  Cape  Horn. 
In  1914  the  author  spent  two  months  at  Vera  Cruz 
in  the  American  occupation  of  that  city.  Back  in 
Honolulu  in  1915  he  finished  Jerry  and  had  about 
completed  Michael  when  they  sailed  in  July  for  San 
Francisco. 

In  1916  Jack  London  resigned  from  the  Socialist 
Party  "because  of  its  lack  of  fire  and  its  loss  of  em 
phasis  on  the  class  struggle."  "My  final  word  is  that 
liberty,  freedom  and  independence  are  royal  things 
that  cannot  be  presented  to,  nor  thrust  upon,  races 
or  classes.  If  races  and  classes  cannot  rise  up  and  by 


270       OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

their  strength  of  brain  and  brawn  wrest  from  the  world 
liberty,  freedom,  and  independence,  they  never  in  time 
can  come  to  these  royal  possessions." 

Meantime,  at  his  home  in  the  Valley  of  the  Moon, 
his  long  sickness  was  upon  him.  He  died  November 
22,  1916,  not  sorry  nor  yet  glad  to  go.  He  had  in 
sisted  that  nobody  be  present  at  his  funeral  but  his 
wife  and  sister  and  the  poet  Sterling.  Buried  on  a 
site  he  had  selected  for  himself,  he  recalls  in  his  rest 
ing  place  as  in  his  life,  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  and 
their  common  love  for  the  open  spaces. 

Instant  regret  assails  one  who  considers  that  the 
boy  who  fought  long  and  hard  before  achieving  the 
barest  foothold  for  an  equal  fight,  died  before  he  had 
scarcely  halved  his  allotted  three  score  and  ten.  But 
if  one  agrees  that  he  had  made  in  Martin  Eden  his 
last  attempt  to  write  for  the  love  of  good  writing, 
and  that,  a  disillusioned  man,  he  was  a  child  grown 
tired  of  his  playthings,  then  it  may  be  best  for  his 
after-fame  that  he  passed  young.  If  he  burnt  out  his 
life  by  enjoyment  of  it,  then  he  greatly  enjoyed. 

Jack  London  loved  adventure,  as  we  have  seen; 
he  loved  clean  sports — swimming,  canoeing,  boxing, 
swinging  the  sledge,  throwing  the  hammer,  and  rid 
ing  horseback.  He  said  he  would  rather  dig  ditches 
than  write,  a  statement  to  be  taken  with  allowance 
when  we  remember  his  long  study  and  rigorous  prac 
tice.  He  loved  reading,  as  we  have  also  seen.  Next 


JACK  LONDON  271 

to  his  own  stories  he  loved  the  verse  of  George  Sterl 
ing  (Brissenden,  in  Martin  Eden).  He  was  not  an 
academician,  and  more  than  once  jars  the  sensitive 
ear;  for  example,  when  he  refers  to  the  study  of 
Chaucer  as  "Saxon."  He  loved  music.  There  is  a 
touch  of  pathos  and  prophecy  in  Mrs.  London's  state 
ment  that  Jack  loved  nothing  better  than  the  funereal 
rhythms  of  Handel's  Largo  and  the  processionals  of 
Chopin  and  Beethoven.  He  loved  his  home,  his  estate 
of  over  a  thousand  acres  which  he  bought  in  the  first 
flush  of  his  success,  and  on  which  he  planted  an  in 
credible  number  of  eucalyptus  trees.  The  thing  he  pro 
fessed  to  like  most  of  all  was  personal  achievement. 
And  always  he  loved  romance,  the  call  of  the  far 
away. 

Jack  London's  supreme  gift  was  that  of  story  tell 
ing.  It  has  been  asserted  not  without  just  claim  that 
there  is  nothing  among  all  his  work  which  cannot 
be  called  a  story.  And  on  the  negative  side,  he  failed 
when  he  tried  Carlylean  philippics  or  drama.  Accord 
ing  to  Oliver  Madox  Hueffer,  who  knew  him  at  Vera 
Cruz,  the  stories  he  spoke  were  better  than  those  he 
wrote.  His  success  lies  in  his  knowledge  gained  first 
hand;  in  his  sense  of  the  dramatic  and  picturesque, 
and  in  his  love  for  the  struggle.  It  is  not  odd  that 
he  built  upon  some  phase  or  instance  of  the  Eternal 
Conflict. 

The  most  significant  aspects  of  his  narrative  work 
appear,  at  first  glance,  to  be  his  amazing  fertility  and 


272       OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

his  wide  range  of  subject  matter.  Underlying  the 
range,  however,  clearly  unifying  principles  proclaim 
themselves:  interest  in  sociology  and  evolution  runs 
like  a  cable  throughout  the  length  of  his  life-work. 
Yet  it  is  not,  usually,  obtrusive.  Witness  The  Call 
of  the  Wild.  One  may  read  Li-Wan,  the  Fair  without 
an  oppressive  awareness  of  its  illustrating  Spencer's 
consciousness  of  kind,  or  The  Son  of  the  Wolf  without 
worrying  over  its  exemplification  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest,  or  The  Sea  Wolf  without  reflecting  that  it 
pushes  to  the  nth  degree  Nietzsche's  theories  about 
the  Blond  Beast.  The  reader  of  the  story  will  enjoy 
the  adventure,  the  concrete;  the  analyst  will  find  in  it 
a  new  illustration  of  a  social  principle. 

Now  and  then,  it  is  true,  the  theme  receives  em 
phasis  at  the  cost  of  narrative  interest.  Consider 
The  Scarlet  Plague,  a  long  short-story  which  demon 
strates  first,  that  an  insignificant  germ  can  delete  in  an 
inconceivably  brief  time  an  entire  nation ;  second,  that 
the  survivors  who  are  left  to  found  a  new  civilization 
will  only  repeat  evolutionary  processes.  The  narrative 
conforms  agreeably  to  short-story  technique,  but 
leaves  the  reader  pondering  on  its  theme  long  after 
characters  and  setting  and  the  related  action  have  de 
parted  into  oblivion.  Similarly,  Before  Adam,  a  com 
prehensive  work  on  anthropology,  reveals  the  author's 
interest  in  prehistoric  man  and  holds  attention  by  its 
speculations  of  what  life  was  like  in  the  Mid-Pleisto 
cene  Age. 


JACK  LONDON  273 

His  stated  interest  in  sociology  occurs,  mainly,  out 
side  his  volumes  of  short-stories.  Occasionally,  how 
ever,  he  incorporates  some  socially  significant  prin 
ciple;  for  example,  in  The  Heathen,  he  insists  upon 
the  brotherhood  of  man.  In  The  House  of  Pride,  he 
illustrates  the  truth  that  manhood  lies  beneath  the 
veneer  of  civilization  and  depends  not  at  all  upon  it 
or  worldly  position. 

His  technique  grows,  logically,  out  of  his  conception 
of  life.  As  he  says  of  Martin,  "It  was  always  the 
great  universal  motif  that  suggested  plots."  After  the 
idea  came  location  in  time  and  place  and  the  par 
ticular  persons  for  its  embodiment  or  demonstration. 
In  accordance  with  his  genius,  he  evolved  the  physical 
struggle,  as  we  have  repeated,  and  as  stories  chosen  at 
random  will  exemplify.  In  Love  of  Life  a  man  trav 
erses  a  snow-covered  plain  against  the  forces  of  hun 
ger,  disease,  and  a  starving  wolf;  in  The  Hoiise  of 
Mapuhi,  the  hero  weathers  a  typhoon  on  Hikueru; 
in  Demetrios  Contos  a  patrolman  on  San  Francisco 
bay  captures,  after  an  exciting  chase,  a  Greek  pirate. 
To  Build  a  Fire  records  the  vain  attempt  of  a  man 
half  frozen  to  secure  warmth  and  life.  All  Gold 
Canyon  presents  a  fight  to  the  death  between  two 
men  for  a  pocket  of  gold.  The  Game,  a  favorite  of 
the  author,  describes  with  the  skill  of  the  artist  and  the 
knowledge  of  the  initiated,  a  prize-fight  as  no  prize 
fight  had  been  described  previously.  And  if,  occa- 


274       OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

sionally,  he  tries  a  slightly  different  type  of  conflict, 
as  in  The  Shadow  and  the  Flash,  he  none  the  less  con 
veys  the  feeling  of  personal  strife.  In  all  these  stories 
of  physical  contest  or  endurance  the  character  is  a 
man  of  fortune.  He  may  be  adventuring  for  gold 
because  he  is  an  outcast,  or  a  rover,  or  because  he  has 
left  an  easier  life  in  the  hope  of  "making  his  pile." 
But  his  personality,  though  fitting  to  the  time  and  place, 
is  ordinarily  subdued  to  the  action.  This  point  argues 
well  for  the  story:  the  story's  the  thing,  however 
deeply  in  character  it  may  be  rooted  and  should  be 
rooted.  That  he  has  contributed  no  portraits  to 
the  fictive  hall  of  fame  means  that  he  was  a  raconteur, 
rather  than  a  novelist.  There  is  one  glory  of  the 
moon  and  another  of  the  stars.  Few  writers  have 
wrought  with  greater  vision,  whether  story-tellers  or 
novelists;  few  have  analyzed  with  keener  mental  pro 
cesses  the  structure  of  the  social  fabric. 

Asked  only  a  short  time  before  his  death  what  he 
considered  the  factors  of  his  literary  success,  Mr. 
London  tabulated  them — eight.  First,  good  luck.  He 
might  have  suffered,  as  he  said,  before  the  age  of 
seventeen  the  fate  of  his  comrades  of  the  oyster  beds. 
They  were  drowned,  shot,  killed  by  disease  or  declin 
ing  in  prisons.  Second,  good  health,  in  spite  of  the 
liberties  he  took  with  it.  His  open  air  life,  rough  and 
hard,  fostered  the  good  body  nature  gave  him.  Third, 
good  brain,  derived  from  a  noble  American  lineage, 


JACK  LONDON  275 

mainly  English  and  Welsh.  Fourth,  good  mental  and 
muscular  correlation.  Fifth,  poverty.  Sixth,  reading 
Signa  at  the  age  of  eight.  Seventh,  the  influence 
of  Herbert  Spencer's  Philosophy  of  Style.  Eighth, 
his  early  start. 

But  no  reader  of  Martin  Eden  can  doubt  that  untir 
ing,  unswerving  application  to  his  art  and  his  business 
of  story  writing  contributed  most  to  his  success.  As 
he  has  recounted  (Chapter  XXIII)  he  read  the  works 
of  men  who  had  arrived,  "he  noted  every  result 
achieved  by  them,  and  worked  out  the  tricks  by  which 
they  had  been  achieved — the  tricks  of  narrative,  of  ex 
position,  of  style,  the  points  of  view,  the  contrasts,  the 
epigrams  ...  He  did  not  ape.  He  sought  principles." 
He  induced  the  general  principle  of  mannerism;  he 
collected  lists  of  strong  phrases,  "phrases  that  bit  like 
acid  and  scorched  like  flame,  or  that  glowed  and  were 
mellow  and  luscious  in  the  midst  of  the  arid  desert  of 
common  speech.  He  sought  always  for  the  principle 
that  lay  behind  and  beneath.  He  was  not  content  with 
the  fair  face  of  beauty  .  .  .  having  dissected  and 
learned  the  anatomy  of  beauty,  he  was  nearer  being 
able  to  create  beauty  itself.  .  .  .  And  no  matter  how 
much  he  dissected  beauty  in  search  of  the  principles 
that  underlie  beauty  and  make  beauty  possible,  he  was 
aware,  always,  of  the  innermost  mystery  of  beauty 
to  which  he  did  not  penetrate  and  to  which  no  man  had 
ever  penetrated." 


276       OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

The  works  of  Jack  London : 

The  Son  of  the  Wolf,  1900. 

The  God  of  His  Fathers,  1901. 

A  Daughter  of  the  Snows,  1902. 

The  Children  of  the  Frost,  1902. 

The  Cruise  of  the  Dazzler,  1902. 

The  People  of  the  Abyss,  1903. 

The  Kempton-Wace  Letters,  1903. 

The  Call  of  the  Wild,  1903. 

The  Faith  of  Men,  1904. 

The  Sea  Wolf,  1904. 

The  Game,  1905. 

War  of  the  Classes,  1905. 

Tales  of  the  Fish  Patrol,  1905. 

Moon  Face  and  Other  Stories,  1906. 

Scorn  of  Woman  (a  play),  1906. 

White  Fang,  1907. 

Before  Adam,  1907. 

Love  of  Life,  1907. 

The  Iron  Heel,  1907. 

The  Road,  1907. 

Martin  Eden,  1909. 

Lost  Face,  1909. 

Revolution,  1910. 

Burning  Daylight,  1910. 

Theft,  1910. 

When  God  Laughs,  1910. 

Adventure,  1911. 


JACK  LONDON  277 

The  Cruise  of  the  Snark,  1911. 

South  Sea  Tales,  1911. 

Smoke  Bellew  Tales,  1912. 

The  House  of  Pride,  1912. 

A  Son  of  the  Son,  1912. 

The  Night  Born,  1913. 

The  Abysmal  Brute,  1913. 

John  Barleycorn,  1913. 

The  Valley  of  the  Moon,  1913. 

The  Strength  of  the  Strong,  191^. 

The  Mutiny  of  the  Elsinore,  1914. 

The  Scarlet  Plague,  1915. 

The  Star  Rover,  1915. 

The  Little  Lady  of  the  Big  House,  1916. 

The  Turtles  of  Tasman,  1916. 

The  Human  Drift,  1917. 

Jerry  of  the  Islands,  1917. 

Michael,  Brother  of  Jerry,  1917. 

On  the  Makaloa  Mat,  1919. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

JAMES  BRANDER   MATTHEWS 

IN  The  Cambridge  History  of  American  Literature 
(Chapter  VI,  Volume  II)  occurs  a  significant 
paragraph.  It  begins,  "1884  was  the  climactic  year 
in  the  history  of  the  short-story  inasmuch  as  it  pro 
duced  The  Lady  or  the  Tiger?  and  In  the  Tennessee 
Mountains,  each  one  of  them  a  literary  sensation  that 
advertised  the  form  tremendously."  It  ends,  "The 
year  was  notable,  too,  because  it  produced  Brander 
Matthews'  The  Philosophy  of  the  Short-Story, — the 
first  scientific  handling  of  the  art  of  the  form  since 
Poe's  review  of  Hawthorne/'  If,  in  the  first  sentence, 
some  of  us  might  prefer  "a  climactic  year,"  with  the 
second  nobody  can  disagree. 

Brander  Matthews'  contribution  to  short  story  his 
tory,  criticism,  and  literature  is  considerable.  No  book 
about  our  story  writers  can  afford  to  omit  his  work, 
yet  his  fame  will  rest  upon  other  labors.  From  French 
Dramatists  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  (1881),  which 
grew  out  of  his  enthusiasm  for  the  recent  French  play, 
through  The  Development  of  the  Drama  (1903), 
wherein  he  sums  up  comprehensively  his  knowledge  of 

278 


JAMES  BRANDER  MATTHEWS        279 

successive  dramatic  ages,  to  Moliere  (1910)  and 
Shakespeare  as  a  Playwright  (1913),  studies  in  detail 
of  the  two  great  dramatists,  Mr.  Matthews  has  pro 
gressed  to  the  place  of  first  authority  in  matters  his 
trionic.  As  the  last  named  title  indicates,  he  is  tech 
nician  no  less  than  historian.  A  Study  of  the  Drama 
(1910),  A  Book  About  the  Theater  (1916),  and  The 
Principles  of  Play  making  (1919)  testify  with  further 
explicitness  to  this  interest.  He  has  written  a  number 
of  plays.  Not  to  mention  his  earlier  French  adapta 
tions  or  his  less  successful  original  ventures,  his  A 
Gold  Mine  and  On  Probation  were  acted  several  sea 
sons.  He  is  an  indefatigable  play-goer,  and  as  he 
states  in  These  Many  Years  (1917)  he  has  seen,  prob 
ably,  almost  everything  that  was  worth  seeing  in  the 
theaters  of  New  York  in  the  half-century  which  elapsed 
between  1865  and  1915.  He  knows  the  theaters  and 
actors  of  Paris  and  London  only  not  quite  so  well, 
perhaps,  as  those  of  New  York. 

He  has  written  about  verse  forms.  The  Rhymester, 
or  The  Rules  of  Rhyme,  by  Tom  Hood,  he  edited  with 
additions,  in  1882,  and  A  Study  of  Versification  he 
published  in  1910.  In  his  story  The  New  Member  of 
the  Club  (1893),  some  one  remarks  of  Arthur  Perm 
(a  pseudonym  of  Mr.  Matthews)  that  he  knows  a 
sonnet  when  he  sees  it,  "and  he  can  turn  off  as  good 
a  topical  song  as  any  man  in  New  York."  In  earlier 
years  he  frequently  exercised  this  talent  for  lighter 
verse  and  at  the  age  of  sixty  presented  to  his  friends 


280       OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

a  few  of  his  scattered  poems  humorously  entitled 
Fugmtvues  -from  Justice. 

He  is,  par  excellence,  the  great  college  professor, 
the  one  at  Columbia  University  who  for  the  longest 
time  has  been  before  the  public  eye.  Twenty  years 
after  he  took  his  A.B.  degree,  he  returned  to  his  alma 
mater  as  assistant  professor  of  English  literature,  later 
(1899)  occupying  the  first  chair  of  its  kind  to  be 
established  in  this  country,  that  of  dramatic  literature. 
He  will  live  longest  through  his  books;  he  will  live 
best  loved  by  the  boys  who  have  sat  in  his  class-room 
year  after  year,  to  whom  he  is  not  only  a  rare  instructor 
but  "a  good  fellow/'  and  most  admired  by  all  the  men 
and  women  to  whom  in  large  numbers  he  has  lectured, 
out  of  the  plenitude  of  his  richness,  on  the  develop 
ment  of  the  drama.  These  lectures  are  indescribable 
rushes  of  information  that  soothe  by  their  emollient 
urbanity,  delight  by  their  scintillant  humor,  incite  to 
keener  appreciation  through  poignant  darts  of  criticism, 
vivify  the  subject  with  anecdotes  of  foremost  writers 
and  actors,  and  illuminate  through  the  electric  glow 
of  a  unique  personality.  He  thinks  he  is  not  a  "born 
orator" ;  but  he  must  have  been  a  talker  shortly  after 
that  auspicious  event. 

Such  a  personality  cannot  but  have  lived  greatly. 
In  the  course  of  his  three  score  years  and  more  Mr. 
Matthews  may  boast  of  the  acquaintance  or  friend 
ship  of  most  representative  professional  folk  through 
out  the  globe.  To  read  These  Many  Years  is  to  see 


JAMES  BRANDER  MATTHEWS        281 

unfold  from  his  angle  the  last  quarter  of  the  old  cen 
tury  and  the  first  years  of  the  new. 

Not  only  on  the  broad  highway  of  literature  did 
Mr.  Matthews  early  set  forth.     From  the  beginning 
he  strayed  into  byways,  taking  time  for  curiosities 
of   literature  as  of   life.      Parodies,    fans,   notes   on 
swearing,  hypnotism,  crystal  gazing,  tumbleronicons, 
"carols    of   cookery,"    and    sixteen   years    without    a 
birthday — these  merely  illustrate  the  countless  diversi 
fied  topics  that  have  received  attention  from  his  pen. 
The  variety  of  his  interests,  serious  and  diverting, 
has  meant  a  number  of  outlets  for  expression.     So 
it  is  that  he  has  published  in  all  the  prominent  periodi 
cals  at  home  and  many  in  London  and  Paris.     He 
writes  no  reviews  of  the  current  drama  because  he  is 
a  member  of  the  Players  Club,  to  which  no  critic  of 
the  current  stage  may  be  admitted.     His  large  pop 
ularity  first  arrived,  it  may  be  added,  through  one  of 
the  volumes  resulting  from  his  professional  career: 
his  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  American  Literature. 
These  Many    Years  sets   forth   entertainingly   the 
facts   of   his  life   and  work.      To   sum   up  the   full 
chronology  would  be  a  labor  of  supererogation.    But  it 
is  interesting  to  read  that  he  was  born  in  New  Orleans 
in  1852,  that  he  moved  with  his  father  and  mother 
to  New  York  when  he  was  a  child,  that  he  was  brought 
up  to  the  profession  of  millionaire  but  turned  with 
amazing  ease  to  the  earning  of  his  own  livelihood,  that 
he  read  Beadle's  Dime  Novels,  that  he  became  a  trapeze 


282        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

performer  and  expert  parlor  juggler,  that  he  rapidly 
widened  his  reading,  that  Arnold's  Essays  in  Criticism 
and  Lowell's  Among  My  Books  initiated  him  into  the 
principles  and  practice  of  criticism,  that  he  taught  him 
self  writing  by  a  weekly  letter  to  Figaro  (London), 
that  he  took  a  degree  in  law  two  years  after  his  A.B. 
degree  in  1871,  that  the  same  year  (1873)  he  was 
married  to  Miss  Ada  Smith  of  London,  and  that  he 
remained  four  or  five  years  in  his  father's  office  before 
turning  definitely  to  his  life  work.  It  is  interesting  to 
find  many  illustrations  of  his  love  for  club  life.  After 
eighteen  years  on  the  waiting  list  for  the  Athe 
naeum  he  was  admitted — the  first  American;  he  is 
a  familiar  figure  at  the  Savile.  At  home  he  frequents 
the  Century,  the  Authors,  and  the  Players.  He  is  an 
enthusiastic  advocate  of  reformed  spelling;  he  has 
aided  in  the  organization  of  certain  leagues  and 
societies ;  he  is  the  fifty-second  member  of  the  American 
Academy  of  Arts  and  Letters;  he  is  a  member  of  the 
(French)  Legion  of  Honor.  It  is  pleasant  to  read, 
further,  of  his  happy  experiences  in  collaboration  with 
Laurence  Hutton,  Bronson  Howard,  George  H.  Jessop, 
and  Henry  Cuyler  Bunner.  Above  all,  it  is  heartening 
to  see  that  he  has  fulfilled  one  after  another  of  his 
early  ideals ;  his  ambition  to  write  a  history  of  dramatic 
literature  was  formed  in  1873  and  gratified  in  1903, 
to  write  the  biography  of  Moliere  was  conceived  in 
1872  and  in  fruition  nearly  forty  years  later. 
It  may  seem  matter  for  wonder  that  he  has  found 


JAMES  BRANDER  MATTHEWS        283 

time  to  study  mere  fiction  or  to  practice  its  composi 
tion.  Yet  for  a  period  of  years  he  wrote  novels  and 
short  stories,  to  the  exclusion  more  or  less  of  other 
forms,  and  was  probably  deterred  from  further,  so- 
called,  "creative"  writing  only  by  his  duties  at  Colum 
bia  University.  His  best  known  novels  are  A  Con 
fident  To-morrow  (1899),  The  Action  and  the  Word 
(1900),  and  His  Father's  Son  (1895),  each  °f  which 
has  for  sub-title,  A  Novel  of  New  York. 

In  fiction,  as  in  the  drama;  he  has  followed  a  wholly 
logical  method  of  procedure.  His  analytical  habit 
of  mind  precedes  or  accompanies  the  synthesis  of  com 
position.  From  the  beginning,  in  fiction  as  elsewhere, 
the  manner  of  accomplishment  has  concerned  him  more 
than  the  matter.  Hence,  he  has  written  on  aspects  of 
its  philosophy  and  technique. 

He  is  not  without  suspicion  that  his  first  serial, 
now  forgotten,  was  modeled  on  the  dime  novels  he 
had  read  with  such  assiduity.  But  when  he  began 
seriously  to  practice  the  art  of  narrative,  he  took  for 
his  master  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  "From  whom," 
he  says  in  the  dedication  of  The  Story  of  a  Story 
(1893),  "I  learnt  the  trade  of  story-telling."  He 
studied  to  write  the  tale  "with  an  amusing  twist  of 
surprise  at  the  end  of  it."  He  may  be  appraised  in  this 
particular  in  A  Family  Tree  (title  story  of  the  volume, 
1889),  in  which  the  "inexorable  end  of  a  Greek 
tragedy"  is  shifted  to  a  happy  conclusion,  justified  by 
the  statement  that  "Love  is  too  strong  for  Fate";  or 


284        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

in  The  New  Member  of  the  Club  (The  Story  of  a 
Story) ,  where  the  pleasing  shock  turns  on  a  raconteur's 
having  not  one  brother-in-law  but  eleven;  or  in  The 
Rival  Ghosts  (in  In  Partnership,  and  later  in  Tales  of 
Fantasy  and  Fact),  which  makes  the  somehow  totally 
unexpected  revelation  that  the  antagonistic  spirits  were 
of  opposite  sex;  or  in  An  Interview  with  Miss  Marlen- 
spuyk  (Outlines  in  Local  Color),  in  which  the  piquant 
flavor  is  added  at  the  very  last. 

As  Mr.  Matthews  has  recorded,  Aldrich  was  his 
predecessor  in  another  respect.  The  Documents  in  the 
Case  reveals  a  series  of  events  through  letters,  tele 
grams,  news  paragraphs,  pawn  tickets,  and  similar 
evidence.  This  novel  framework  advanced  beyond 
the  letters  of  Marjorie  Daw,  which  none  the  less  fur 
nished  the  idea  to  Mr.  Matthews  and  his  collaborator, 
Bunner.  Both  authors  liked  experimenting  with  the 
letter-form.  Witness  Bunner's  A  Letter  and  a  Para 
graph*  and  Mr.  Matthews'  Two  Letters  (The  Story 
of  a  Story),  Idle  Notes  of  an  Idle  Voyage,  Chester- 
•field's  Letters  to  His  Son,  and  the  titular  piece  of  A 
Family  Tree. 

Two  Letters,  One  Story  Is  Good  Till  Another  Is 
Told,  and  The  Story  of  a  Story  illustrate  a  third  device 
in  technique.  Complementary  points  of  view  in  Two 
Letters  convey  the  correct  account  to  the  reader.  One 
Story  Is  Good  was  written  in  collaboration  with  George 

*  Love  in  Old  Chathes,  where  it  is  reprinted  from  In  Partner 
ship. 


JAMES  BRANDER  MATTHEWS        285 

H.  Jessop,  as  a  similar  experiment :  "We  simply  nar 
rated  twice  the  same  sets  of  incidents  as  seen  through 
two  different  pairs  of  eyes."  In  The  Story  of  a  Story, 
he  uses  the  angles  of  author,  editor,  artist,  printer, 
publisher,  critic,  and  four  readers,  in  order  to  carry  a 
complete  estimate  of  the  "story."  These  efforts,  as 
well  as  others,  such  as  Henry  James's  The  Point  of 
View,  succeeded  the  famous  example  of  Browning's 
The  Ring  and  the  Book. 

The  Story  of  a  Story  illustrates,  further,  the  author's 
insistence  upon  the  struggle  element  in  fiction.  The 
artist  says,  "There's  a  fight  in  it";  the  girl  remarks, 
There  was  too  much  fighting  in  it";  the  blacksmith 
declares,  "I'd  like  to  have  met  the  man  that  fought 
that  way";  and  the  small  boy  "picked  it  out  because 
there  was  the  picture  of  a  fight  in  it." 

Suggestion,  too,  Mr.  Matthews  believes  to  be  in 
dispensable  to  short-story  success.  This  principle 
emerges  in  the  selection  just  discussed ;  notably,  again, 
in  Chesterfield's  Letters,  wherein  the  postcards  reveal 
by  strong  implication,  the  adventurous  life  of  J.  Quincy 
A.  Chesterfield;  and  in  By  Telephone,  which  conveys 
one  end  of  a  conversation  through  the  expressed  other 
end.  This  device  is  shopworn  now,  even  on  the  dis 
card  shelf ;  but  in  the  late  eighties  it  could  have  been 
not  otherwise  than  new. 

Fantasy,  according  to  this  author  in  his  The  Phil- 
osophy  of  the  Short-Story,  is  a  desirable  constituent. 
Nowhere  has  he  reached  this  ideal  better  than  in  The 


286       OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Rival  Ghosts.  Tales  of  Fantasy  and  Fact  (1896) 
when  most  fantastic  are  less  story-like.  A  Primer  of 
Imaginary  Geography,  The  Kinetoscope  of  Time,  and 
The  Dream  Gown  of  the  Japanese  Ambassador  are 
the  works  of  Mr.  Matthews  which  deserve  the  title 
of  incursions  in  beauty.  The  author  modestly  says  of 
these  tales  that  they  may  reveal  invention  only;  but 
surely  through  reminiscence  of  high  imaginative  peaks 
they  carry  the  illusion  of  imagination.  They  are, 
however,  not  among  his  best  narratives.  They  are, 
rather,  of  the  later  Vision  literature,  exemplified,  for 
instance,  in  Addison's  Mirza.  In  The  Dream  Gown, 
moreover,  after  effecting  a  fair  story,  he  explains  too 
explicitly  the  motivations  for  the  dreams.  Always 
interested  in  watching  the  wheels  revolve,  he  must 
tell  the  other  man  how  they  move.  In  an  earlier  story, 
On  the  Battlefield,  he  could  not  resist  describing  in 
detail  the  construction  of  the  cyclorama.  This  interest 
in  discovering  how  a  thing  is  done  he  illustrates  in  A 
Confidential  Postscript  to  The  Tales  of  Fantasy  and 
Fact. 

Close  circumscription  in  time  and  place  conduce  to 
unity  of  action,  effect  and  single  intention.  In  a  Vesti 
bule  Limited  (1892)  and  Check  and  Countercheck:  A 
Tale  of  Twenty-five  Hours  (1892)*  illustrate  in  their 
very  titles  a  conscious  conformity  to  the  laws  of  the 
Greek  "unities." 

*  Reprinted  from  Lippincotfs  Magazine,  1888,  where  it  bears 
the  sub-title,  A  Tale  of  Twenty -four  Hours. 


JAMES  BRANDER  MATTHEWS        287 

It  is  not  surprising  that  from  his  over-sea  travel, 
Mr.  Matthews  occasionally  used,  in  his  earlier  stories, 
the  ocean  for  setting  or  background.  The  story  of 
The  Rival  Ghosts  is  told  at  sea,  presumably;  jottings 
during  a  supposed  voyage  became  Idle  Notes.  The 
Secret  of  the  Sea  (title  story  of  the  volume  published 
1886)  is  perhaps  the  best  of  the  lot,  in  its  recountal 
of  how  an  ocean  liner  is  forced  by  a  yacht  to  surrender 
the  specie  it  carries. 

But  as  the  author  has  stated,  he  uses  New  York 
most  often  for  his  setting.  And  the  greatest  service 
he  has  performed  in  the  field  of  the  short  story  exists 
in  three  volumes  about  the  Empire  City :  Vignettes  of 
Manhattan  (1894),  Outlines  in  Local  Color  (1897), 
and  Vistas  of  New  York  (1912).  The  first  of  these 
has  become  a  classic  for  its  Spring  in  a  Side  Street,  In 
the  Little  Church  Down  the  Street,  Vista  in  Central 
Park  and  other  numbers :  delicate  miniatures,  all  of 
them,  regarded  by  certain  critics  as  the  author's  best 
work  in  fiction.  Vistas  includes  In  a  Hansom — to  which 
Richard  Harding  Davis's  A  Walk  Up  the  Avenue  is 
the  only  companion-piece — On  the  Steps  of  the  City 
Hall,  Under  an  April  Sky,  and  repeats,  from  another, 
collection,  In  a  Bob-Tail  Car,  for  the  loss  of  any  of 
which,  literature  about  New  York  would  be  the  poorer. 
For  Outlines  we  have  a  strong  personal  preference, 
from  An  Interview  with  Miss  Marlenspuyk  to  Men 
and  Women  and  Horses. 

These   thirty-six    tales — there   are   twelve    to   the 


288       OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

volume,  one  for  each  month — present  the  city  in  the 
late  nineteenth  century,  with  a  dash  of  twentieth  cen 
tury  spirit.  There  are  the  landmarks  dear  to  every 
New  Yorker:  Central  Park  and  Fifth  Avenue,  the 
East  Side  and  the  East  River;  the  region  below  Four 
teenth  Street — so  different  a  few  years  ago  from  its 
present  aspect;  Wall  Street  and  Broadway;  Riverside 
Drive  and  the  Hudson.  There  are  the  Gotham  cus 
toms  and  pleasures,  which  have  passed  or  may  pass, 
but  not  from  the  hearts  of  those  who  have  known 
them:  the  horse  show  in  Madison  Square  Garden; 
Thanksgiving  Day  parade;  the  giving  of  potted  plants 
at  Easter.  The  cable  car,  the  jeweler's  at  Fifteenth 
Street  (already  he  is  farther  uptown),  the  Statue  of 
Liberty,  Normal  College  (now  Hunter  College  in 
honor  of  its  founder),  Trinity  Church,  the  Squares, 
and  the  Jersey  Shores — nothing  is  too  large  or  too 
small  to  receive  attention.  In  fact,  reading  with  his 
purpose  in  mind,  one  cannot  but  feel  that  the  land 
marks  press  a  trifle  closely  and  obviously.  He  is  more 
successful  with  the  aspects  of  the  city;  April  rain 
Fourth  of  July  heat,  and  January  snow  are  more  than 
mere  "weather."  They  are  garments  that  express 
the  moods  of  Manhattan. 

Since  the  first  of  these  books  appeared,  it  has  become 
the  fashion  to  stage  the  action  of  stories  in  New  York. 
But  Mr.  Matthews  observes  that  when  he  and  Bunner 
first  discussed  the  topic  of  the  individuality,  the  pic- 
turesqueness  and  the  charm  of  the  city  as  a  novel 


JAMES  BRANDER  MATTHEWS        289 

setting,  about  the  year  1880,  there  were  only  a  scant 
half  dozen  books  so  using  it.  "I  attempted  to  catch 
certain  aspects  and  attributes  of  New  York  merely 
because  I  found  keen  enjoyment  in  making  these  snap 
shots  of  the  metropolis,  and  because  I  kept  on  observ 
ing  conditions  and  situations  which  seemed  to  me  to  be 
essentially  characteristic  of  the  city  I  loved."  Etchings, 
thumb-nails,  the  author  appropriately  terms  these  ad 
ventures  in  local  color.  He  knows  they  have  the  merit 
of  sincerity  and  directness;  for  they  grow  from  in 
timate  knowledge.  He  never  went  out  of  his  depth. 
"Sometimes  I  was  able  to  utilize  a  real  happening, 
brought  to  me  by  word  of  mouth  and  therefore  more 
malleable  than  if  it  had  been  snatched  from  a  news 
paper;  and  sometimes  the  germ  of  my  story  had  to 
evolve  by  spontaneous  generation  in  my  own  head, 
conjuring  up  the  ghost  of  a  plot  to  permit  me  to  re 
produce  the  atmosphere  of  the  special  spot  and  the 
special  moment  I  had  chosen." 

The  author  would  agree  with  a  former  student  of 
his,  George  Hellman,  that  the  tales  interest  through 
the  social  milieu  and  the  enjoyable  conversation,  that 
there  are  no  strong  characters — it  was  not  part  of  his 
purpose  to  present  them — they  are  real  people  one 
might  have  met  in  any  of  the  circumstances  set  forth. 
They  occur  and  recur  in  his  episodes,  as  they  might  in 
real  life.  But  Mr.  Hellman  is  wrong  in  thinking  the 
plots  not  strong.  Mr.  Matthews'  schooling  with  the 
"deft  playmakers  of  Paris",  his  own  dramatic  con- 


2QO        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

struction,  and  his  sense  of  architectural  finish  pre 
determined  proportionate  success  in  this  regard.  If  we 
keep  in  mind,  always,  his  place  in  the  development  of 
the  short-story,  he  is  one  of  the  prime  "plotters." 

Besides  his  debt  to  Aldrich,  he  owes  something  to 
Francois  Coppee  and  Ludovic  Halevy.  When  Walter 
Learned  translated  ten  of  Coppee's  tales,  Mr.  Matthews 
wrote  the  introduction  for  the  book  (published  1891), 
as  he  did  also  for  Parisian  Points  of  View  (1892), 
translated  from  Halevy  by  E.  V.  B.  Matthews.  His 
bright  dialogue  conceivably  lost  none  of  its  sparkle 
from  study  of  the  most  Parisian  of  story  writers,  none 
of  its  neatness  of  construction  from  study  of  the  man 
who  achieved  The  Substitute.  Henley's  comment  upon 
The  Last  Meeting  (1895)  is  just :  the  crackle  of  clever 
ness  makes  one  long  for  a  flash  of  stupidity.  In  gen 
eral,  his  stories  read  colloquially,  a  recommendation  or 
otherwise,  according  to  taste. 

In  his  The  Philosophy  of  the  Short-Story,  first  con 
tributed  to  The  Saturday  Review  in  1884,  Mr. 
Matthews  set  the  fashion  of  writing  "Short-story," 
the  compound  being  the  only  expression  the  language 
affords  for  a  form  equivalent  to,  or  comparable  to, 
the  conte  of  the  French,  Unfortunately,  this  sugges 
tion  has  not  resulted  in  fixed  custom:  "short  story" 
and  "short-story"  flourish  side  by  side,  either  serving 
for  the  more  severely  defined  form  or  the  story  merely 
short.  Among  the  essentials  of  the  Short-story  Mr. 
Matthews  places  "an  idea  logically  developed  by  one 


JAMES  BRANDER  MATTHEWS        291 

possessing  the  sense  of  form  and  the  gift  of  style"; 
the  supremacy  of  plot — "The  Short -story  is  nothing  if 
there  is  no  story  to  tell" — neat  structure  and  polished 
execution.  Elsewhere  he  says,  "The  Short-story  must 
do  one  thing  and  it  must  do  this  completely  and  per 
fectly:  It  must  not  loiter  or  digress,  it  must  have, 
unity  of  action,  unity  of  temper,  unity  of  tone,  unity 
of  color,  unity  of  effect ;  and  it  must  vigilantly  exclude 
everything  that  might  interfere  with  its  singleness  of 
intention." 

Since  he  has  the  power  of  dissociating  himself  from 
his  work  and  of  judging  it  objectively,  and  since  he  is 
unsparingly  stern  with  himself,  Mr.  Matthews  has 
made  the  most  stringent  criticism  that  may  be  offered 
against  it.  "In  all  these  essays  in  fiction  the  frame 
now  appears  to  me  to  be  more  prominent  than  the 
picture  itself."  But  undoubtedly,  the  social  historian 
of  the  twenty-first  century  will  find  them,  as  their  au 
thor  hopes,  useful. 

Mr.  Matthews'  Short-Stories : 

The  Last  Meeting  (novelette),  1885. 

A  Secret  of  the  Sea  and  Other  Stories,  1886. 

A  Family  Tree,  1889. 

In  the  Vestibule  Limited,  1892. 

Check  and  Countercheck  (with  G.  H.  Jessop), 

1892. 

The  Story  of  a  Story,  1893. 
The  Royal  Marine:  An  Idyl  of  Narragansett 

Pier,  1894. 


292        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Vignettes  of  Manhattan,  1894. 
Tales  of  Fantasy  and  Fact,  1896. 
Outlines  in  Local  Color,  1897. 
Vistas  of  New  York,  1912. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

MELVILLE  DAVISSON  POST 

OF  all  American  writers  who  have  converted  to 
fictive  purposes  the  science  of  logic,  two  are 
preeminent.     They  grew  up,  some  fifty  years 
apart,  in  the  same  section  of  the  United  States,  and 
by   a   pun   the    surname   of    one    is   the    superlative 
of  the  other.    They  are  Edgar  Allan  Poe  and  Melville 
Davisson  Post. 

The  first  of  these  formulated  the  laws  of  the  short 
story.  He  originated  the  detective  story,  his  model 
for  which  served  writers  half  a  century.  That  model 
is  well  known :  a  crime  has  been  committed,  or  is  about 
to  be  committed,  and  the  agent  of  the  law  bends  his 
efforts  to  apprehending  the  criminal  or  to  preventing 
the  crime.  It  was  left  for  the  second  to  invent  a  new 
type  of  detective  tale. 

As  Mr.  Post  has  himself  remarked,  the  flood  of 
detective  stories  succeeding  Poe's  poured  forth  "until 
the  stomach  of  the  reader  failed."  He,  a  lawyer  of 
parts,  who  has  pleaded  before  the  bar  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  West  Virginia,  the  United  Circuit  of  Appeals, 
and  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  recog- 

293 


294        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

nized  that,  notwithstanding  stories  of  crime,  "the  high 
ground  of  the  field  of  crime  has  not  been  explored;  it 
has  not  even  been  entered.  The  book  stalls  have  been 
filled  to  weariness  with  tales  based  upon  plans  whereby 
the  detective  or  ferreting  power  of  the  State  might  be 
baffled.  But,  prodigious  marvel!  no  writer  has  at 
tempted  to  construct  tales  based  upon  plans  whereby 
the  punishing  power  of  the  State  might  be  baffled. 

Deducible  from  the  preceding  paragraph  is  the  orig 
inality  of  Mr.  Post's  inventions.  And  by  inference 
emerges  the  truth  that  only  a  lawyer  or  student  of 
criminology  has  the  precise  knowledge  adequate  to  the 
task.  To  write  a  series  of  detective  stories  wherein 
the  criminal  must  go  unpunished  presupposes  ability 
to  differentiate  between  crime  in  the  sense  of  social 
wrong  and  crime  punishable  by  law.  For  law  is  not 
reason :  not  all  wrongs,  great  though  they  may  be,  are 
crimes. 

Here,  at  once,  enters  a  new  need.  Poe  had  required 
an  acute  and  subtile  intellect,  a  highly  trained  ratioci- 
native  mind,  for  his  detective.  These  he  incorporated 
in  Monsieur  Dupin.  Mr.  Post  required,  first  of  all,  an 
unmoral  intelligence,  preferably  that  of  a  skilled  un 
scrupulous  lawyer  who  would  instruct  men  how  to 
evade  the  law.  Hence,  arose  the  figure  of  Randolph 
Mason. 

Of  the  stories  in  The  Strange  Schemes  of  Randolph 
Mason  (1896)  The  Corpus  Delicti,  reprinted  by  The 
Review  of  Reviews  as  a  masterpiece  of  mystery  fiction, 


MELVILLE  DAVISSON  POST          295 

is  the  most  gruesome  and  the  most  powerful.  But  if 
it  brings  a  shock  to  the  layman,  it  conveys  only  a  strik 
ing  instance  of  legal  lore  to  the  lawyer.  Samuel  Wal- 
cott,  in  danger  from  Nina  St.  Croix,  goes  in  his  dis 
tress  to  Mason.  Mason  gives  directions  that  must  be 
faithfully  followed.  The  reader  is  then  treated  openly 
to  the  performance  of  a  diabolically  contrived  crime. 
In  the  guise  of  a  sailor,  Walcott  enters  Nina's  home, 
stabs  her  to  death,  dismembers  her  body,  destroys  it 
by  means  of  decomposing  agents  and  through  the  bath 
tub  drain  removes  all  traces  of  his  ghastly  work.  He 
is  arrested,  however,  as  he  leaves  the  house  and  is 
brought  to  trial.  To  the  astonishment  of  the  Court, 
the  defendant  Mason  moves  that  the  Judge  direct  the 
jury  to  find  the  prisoner  not  guilty.  In  the  bout  that 
follows  between  himself  and  the  prosecuting  attorney, 
Mason  observes :  "This  is  a  matter  of  law,  plain,  clear, 
and  so  well  settled  in  the  State  of  New  York  that  even 
the  counsel  for  the  people  should  know  it.  ...  If  the 
corpus  delicti,  the  body  of  the  crime,  has  been  proven, 
as  required  by  the  laws  of  the  commonwealth,  then  this 
case  should  go  to  the  jury.  If  not,  then  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  Court  to  direct  the  jury  to  find  the  prisoner 
not  guilty."  The  Judge  so  directs,  and  the  undeniably 
criminal  Walcott  walks  out,  a  free  man. 

Now,  had  Poe  or  Conan  Doyle  told  this  story,  he 
would  have  bent  the  energies  of  the  detective  to  dis 
covering  what  had  become  of  the  body  (the  reader 
would  have  learned  only  when  Dupin  or  Sherlock 


296        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Holmes  saw  fit  to  spring  his  discovery),  and  would 
have  hailed  the  criminal  before  a  bar  at  which  he  would 
be  convicted.  Mr.  Post  frankly  gives  away  the  mur 
der,  and  shifts  his  emphasis  to  showing  how  the  State 
was  baffled. 

Of  other  stories  in  the  same  volume,  The  Sheriff  of 
Gullmore  and  Woodford's  Partner  are,  perhaps,  the 
most  satisfactory.  In  the  latter  Mason  finds  a  crim 
inal  way,  not,  however,  a  crime  before  the  law,  to  pro 
tect  an  honest  young  man  from  whom  has  been  stolen 
twenty  thousand  dollars  entrusted  to  him.  An  extreme 
application  of  the  sophism  that  the  means  justifies  the 
end,  it  draws  to  some  extent  upon  the  reader's  sym 
pathy.  In  the  former,  a  sheriff  who  has  defaulted, 
and  whose  bondsmen  may  be  called  to  cover  his  defal 
cation,  shifts  the  responsibility  to  his  successor  as  he 
goes  out  of  office.  If  here,  as  in  succeeding  stories, 
Mr.  Post  has  seemed  to  show  the  villain  how  to  cir 
cumvent  the  consequences  of  his  villainy,  he  has  also, 
as  he  maintains,  warned  the  friends  of  law  and  order. 

Mr.  George  Randolph  Chester,  whose  Get-Rlcli- 
Quick  Walling  ford  stories  resemble  in  certain  respects 
those  of  Mr.  Post,  was  once  asked  whether  sharpers 
had  not  received  pointers  from  Blackie  and  Walling- 
ford.  "They  have,"  he  replied  with  something  like 
enthusiasm,  "but  they  are  now  behind  prison  bars!" 
One  does  not  like  to  read  with  the  feeling  that  some 
criminal  may  profit  by  the  plan  unfolded;  it  is  more 
pleasant  to  harbor  the  thought  that  the  law  will  take 


MELVILLE  DAVISSON  POST          297 

note,  as  well  as  the  lawless  ...  In  any  event,  Randolph 
Mason  has  the  fascination,  and  the  repulsion,  of  the 
serpent. 

The  succeeding  volume,  The  Man  of  Last  Resort 
(1897),  informing  by  its  sub-title  that  the  stories  deal 
with  the  clients  of  Mason,  has  been  praised  as  a  strong 
plea  for  moral  responsibility  made  in  vivid  and  earnest 
style.  The  author  observes  in  the  Preface  that  a  few 
critics  contended  the  first  volume  was  dangerous  be 
cause  it  explained  with  detail  how  one  could  murder 
or  steal  and  escape  punishment.  He  answers  them  by 
the  fact  that  law-making  ultimately  lies  with  the  citi 
zens,  and  changes  in  the  law  must  come  about  through 
public  sentiment.  "If  men  about  their  affairs  were 
passing  to  and  fro  across  a  great  bridge  and  one  should 
discover  that  certain  planks  in  its  flooring  were  defec 
tive,  would  he  do  ill  if  he  pointed  them  out  to  his 
fellows?"  Perhaps  the  close  of  the  volume  further 
enforces  the  cause  of  righteousness :  Mason  is  in  a  bad 
case  of  acute  mania,  raving  like  a  drunken  sailor :  "The 
man  of  last  resort  was  probably  gone.  There  was 
now  no  resort  but  to  the  steel  thing  on  the  table." 

One  more  volume,  however,  appeared  with  this 
trickster  for  central  character :  The  Corrector  of  Des 
tinies  (1908).  An  element  of  novelty  enters  in  the 
fact  that  Randolph  Mason's  secretary,  Courtlandt 
Parks,  heretofore  spoken  of  in  the  third  person,  be 
comes  the  narrator. 

A  strong  appeal  Mason  has  for  the  reader  is  the 


298        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

eagerness  with  which  he  welcomes  a  struggle  against 
Fate  or  Destiny.  It  appears  as  a  determinant  of  his 
acts  throughout.  With  Chance,  or  Fate,  or  Destiny, 
Robert  W.  Chambers  evolves  a  light  or  pleasing  love 
story;  with  the  same  forces  Melville  Post  effects  a  re 
vision  of  the  Greek  concept.  "Fate  is  supreme/'  says 
Sophocles  through  the  CEdipus  trilogy.  "Perhaps," 
says  Post  through  the  triptych  of  Mason  volumes,  "but 
probably  not.  Fate  may  be  averted."  He  admits, 
through  his  dramas,  that  sometimes  there  is  the  inevi 
table  "come-back,"  as  in  Mrs.  Van  Barton  (in  The 
Man  of  Last  Resort). 

Mr.  Post  recognizes  that  in  a  story,  the  story's  the 
thing,  that  no  degree  of  literary  excellence  can  atone 
for  lack  of  plot.  He  addresses  himself  at  once  to  the 
popular  and  the  critical  reader.  If  there  lives  a  writer  of 
stories  who  is  the  "critic's  writer,"  he  is  the  man.  He 
expressed  himself  unmistakably  in  The  Blight*:  "The 
primary  object  of  all  fiction  is  to  entertain  the  reader. 
If,  while  it  entertains,  it  also  ennobles  him  this  fiction 
becomes  a  work  of  art;  but  its  primary  business  must 
be  to  entertain  and  not  to  educate  or  to  instruct  him." 
In  answering  the  question,  "What  sort  of  fiction  has 
the  most  nearly  universal  appeal?"  he  holds  that  the 
human  mind  is  engaged  almost  exclusively  with  prob 
lems,  and  that  "the  writer  who  presents  a  problem  to 
be  solved  or  a  mystery  to  be  untangled  will  be  offering 
those  qualities  in  his  fiction  which  are  of  the  most 
*  Saturday  Evening  Post,  December  26,  1914. 


MELVILLE  DAVISSON  POST          299 

nearly  universal  appeal."  Men  of  education  and  cul 
ture — but  never  critics  of  stories! — have  taken  the 
position  that  literature  of  this  character  is  not  of  the 
highest  order.  He  cites  Aristotle's  Poetics:  Tragedy 
is  an  imitation,  not  of  men,  but  of  an  action  of  life 
.  . .  the  incidents  and  the  plot  are  the  end  of  a  tragedy." 
The  plot  is  first;  character  is  second.  The  Greeks 
would  have  been  astounded  at  the  idea  common  to 
our  age  that  "the  highest  form  of  literary  structure 
may  omit  the  framework  of  the  plot."  The  short 
story  is  to  our  age  what  the  drama  was  to  the  Greeks. 
Poe  knew  this.  And  he  is  the  one  literary  genius 
America  has  produced. 

Yet  Mr.  Post's  ideal  of  plot  is  no  mere  mechanical 
contrivance.  He  once  expressed  his  pleasure  to  the 
present  writer  that  "there  are  people  who  see  that  a 
story  should  be  clean  cut  and  with  a  single  dominating 
germinal  incident  upon  which  it  turns  as  a  door  upon 
a  hinge,  and  not  built  up  on  a  scaffolding  of  criss-cross 
stuff."  In  all  these  underlying  principles  of  his  work, 
principles  stated  with  the  frankness  of  Poe,  Melville 
Post  strikes  an  answering  chord  in  the  critic  who  finds 
in  his  stories  the  perfect  application  of  the  theories  he 
champions. 

Mr.  Post  also  holds  a  brief  for  his  large  employ 
ment  of  tragic  incident:  "Under  the  scheme  of  the 
universe  it  is  the  tragic  things  that  seem  the  most  real." 
He  pleases  the  popular  audience  because  he  writes  of 
crime.  He  knows,  as  Anna  Katharine  Green  knows, 


300        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

its  universal  appeal.  Mrs.  Green  once  wrote :  "Crime 
must  touch  our  imagination  by  showing  people,  like 
ourselves,  but  incredibly  transformed  by  some  over 
whelming  motive."  Further,  we  are  interested  because 
what  most  interests  us  in  human  beings  is  their  hidden 
emotions;  crime  in  normal  people  must  be  the  result 
of  tremendous  emotion.  We  like  to  read  detective 
stories  of  crime  because  we  like  to  figure  on  the  solu 
tion  of  the  mystery.  Motive  and  mystery,  in  short, 
are  the  sources  of  entertainment,  rather  than  the  crime 
itself.  But  murder  is  interesting  because  of  its  finality : 
it  is  the  supreme  crime,  because  it  is  irreparable.* 

Mrs.  Green  thinks  that  nine  times  out  of  ten  the 
crime  is  selfishness,  which  has  many  forms.  If  one 
form  of  selfishness  is  the  desire  to  be  freed  from  some 
obligation  or  duty,  Mr.  Post  uses  it  as  a  motive  in 
The  Corpus  Delicti.  Walcott  murdered  Nina  because 
he  desired  liberty  and  because  she  was  about  to  dis 
close  the  secret  that  would  have  disgraced  him  and  cost 
him  his  life.  But  he  also  employs  unselfishness  as  a 
motive.  In  Wood-ford's  Partner,  William  Harris  com 
mits  crime  to  save  his  younger  brother  from  disgrace. 
Camden  Gerard,  of  The  Error  of  William  Van  Broom, 
becomes  a  thief  unpunishable  by  law,  that  he  may  pay 
the  school  bills  of  his  sister. 

Uncle  Abner  (1919)  is  proof  that  Mr.  Post  had  by 
no  means  exhausted  his  fecundity  in  creating  the  un 
moral  Mason.  His  sense  of  justice  and  his  sense 
*  American  Magazine. 


MELVILLE  DAVISSON  POST          301 

of  balance  have  produced  a  hero  the  antithesis  of  his 
hero-villain.  Whereas  Mason  delighted  in  struggling 
against  pagan  Fate,  Uncle  Abner  finds  joy  in  further 
ing  the  beneficent  operations  of  Providence.  These 
two  men  express,  respectively,  the  heathen  and  the 
Christian  ideal;  and  they  are  as  complementary  as 
Jekyll  and  Hyde.  This  is  the  significant  accomplish 
ment  of  Mr.  Post.  He  has  demonstrated  that  wrong 
may  triumph  over  man-made  laws,  which  are  imper 
fect  after  all  the  centuries;  but  that  right  must  win 
under  the  timeless  Providence  of  God.  Uncle  Abner 
as  described  by  his  nephew,  Martin,  who  recounts 
most  of  the  exploits,  is  an  austere,  deeply  religious 
man,  with  a  big  iron  frame,  a  grizzled  beard  and 
features  forged  by  a  smith.  His  gift  for  ferreting 
out  crime,  which  is  as  great  as  that  of  Sherlock 
Holmes  and,  in  accordance  with  the  author's  purpose, 
requires  not  nearly  so  long  to  arrive  at  conclusions, 
works  to  throw  down  the  last  barrier  behind  which  the 
criminal  is  entrenched.  Small  space  is  required  to 
mete  out  justice.  Take  The  Concealed  Path,  for  ex 
ample  :  after  four  thousand  words  or  so  ending  in  the 
revelation  of  the  murderer,  Abner 's  pronouncement  of 
doom  is  swift.  .  .  . 

"He  raised  his  great  arm,  the  clenched  bronze  fingers 
big  like  the  coupling  pins  of  a  cart. 

'  'I  would  have  stopped  it  with  my  own  hand/  he 
said ;  'but  I  wanted  the  men  of  the  hills  to  hang  you. 
.  .  .  And  they  are  here/ 


302        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

"There  was  a  great  sound  of  tramping  feet  in  the 
hall  outside. 

"And  while  the  men  entered,  big,  grim,  determined 
men,  Abner  called  out  their  names : 

"  'Arnold,  Randolph,  Stuart,  Elnathan  Stone,  and 
my  brother,  Ruf us !'  " 

The  death  of  a  criminal  may  be  the  subject  of  in 
vestigation,  as  in  The  Doomdorf  Mystery.  The  fiaw- 
lessness  of  this  story  was  appreciated  by  every  critic 
who  read  it  on  its  appearance  in  The  Saturday  Evening 
Post,  July  1 8,  1914.  For  unity,  strength,  and  inte 
gration  of  detail  no  better  story  has  been  written.  Ab 
ner  and  Randolph  arrive  at  the  house  of  Doomdorf, 
meaning  to  remonstrate  with  him  over  his  illicit  brew 
ing.  They  find  the  circuit  rider  Bronson  on  his  big  roan 
horse  in  the  paved  courtyard.  They  knock  and  are 
admitted  by  a  little,  faded  woman.  They  continue  to 
Doomdorf's  door,  which,  finding  bolted,  they  burst 
open.  Doomdorf  is  lying  on  his  couch,  shot  through 
the  heart.  The  mystery  lies  in  the  manner  of  the  mur 
der  :  the  locked  door  and  the  barred  windows  seem  to 
preclude  human  agency;  suicide  is  eliminated  inas 
much  as  the  gun  rests  on  its  rack.  The  mystery  is  not 
lessened  when  the  circuit  rider  declares  he  is  respon 
sible  and  when,  later,  the  woman  declares,  "I  killed 
him!"  In  the  dramatic  revelation,  the  reader  is  held 
breathless.  The  bottle  of  distillate  on  the  table  catches 


MELVILLE  DAVISSON  POST          303 

the  sunbeam  and  focusing  it  upon  the  lock  of  the  gun 
on  the  wall  ignites  the  percussion  cap.  The  symmetry 
of  the  story  is  perfected  through  the  preacher's  prayer 
that  the  Lord  would  destroy  Doomdorf  with  fire  from 
heaven,  and  through  the  woman's  practice  of  magic 
which  urged  her  to  create  a  wax  image  and  to  thrust 
a  needle  through  its  heart.  Doomdorf  had  died  by 
immutable  and  natural  laws  working  through  his  own 
hell-brew  to  poetic  justice;  or  in  answer  to  prayer,  as 
the  circuit  rider  believed;  or  through  her  sorcery,  as 
the  woman  believed;  or  by  the  mysterious  justice  of 
God,  as  Abner  saw  it.* 

As  in  The  Concealed  Path,  murder  is  used  for  chief 
interest  in  The  Wrong  Hand,  The  Angel  of  the  Lord, 
An  Act  of  God,  The  Age  of  Miracles,  The  Straw  Man, 
The  Adopted  Daughter,  and  Naboth's  Vineyard. 

A  difficult  task  lay,  one  might  think,  in  convincing 
the  reader  of  the  murder  in  The  Adopted  Daughter. 
Suppose  you  are  told  that  a  crack  shot  has  put  a  bullet 
through  a  man's  eyeball  so  as  to  leave  no  mark  of 
death.  Impossible,  you  say ;  the  bullet  must  come  out 
somewhere.  But  the  author  allows  his  murderer  to 
use  a  light  charge  of  powder  that  lodges  the  bullet  in 
the  brain.  Well,  you  counter,  why  wouldn't  the 
shrunken  eyelid  betray  the  death-wound?  That  is  the 
center  about  which  the  author  has  woven  the  web  of 
his  story.  You  may  also  reflect  that  expert  marksman- 

*An  interesting  comparison  lies  in  the  end  of  his  long  story, 
The  Nameless  Thing,  1912. 


304        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

ship  is  required.  Mr.  Post  treats  you  to  a  dramatic 
instance  or  so  of  impromptu  efficiency  that  requires 
more  skill  than  is  needed  to  shoot  a  man  through  the 
eyeball.  He  knows  the  value  of  the  a  fortiori  argu 
ment. 

To  the  critical  eye  the  weakness  of  most  of  these 
tales  is  apparent ;  but  they  are  not  obstrusive  to  a  reader 
who  seeks  entertainment.  For  example,  in  The 
Adopted  Daughter,  Sheppard  Flornoy's  eye  has  been 
shot  out  by  his  brother  Vespasian.  The  latter  saws 
off  the  head  of  an  ivory  pawn  and  forces  it  into  the 
bullet  hole  to  round  out  the  damaged  eyeball.  No 
criminal  would  be  likely  to  keep  the  pawn  after  sawing 
off  the  head.  Yet  it  is  this  tell-tale  object  which,  joined 
to  suspected  motivation  for  the  fratricide,  excites  Ab- 
ner's  suspicion. 

The  scenes  of  these  adventures  are  in  Virginia  in 
the  days  before  the  carving  out  of  West  Virginia. 
Although  the  stories  more  nearly  approach  the  Poe 
type  than  do  the  Mason  group,  yet  novelty  is  secured 
through  shift  of  emphasis  and  through  the  setting. 
Dupin  recalls  to  us  the  crime  of  the  city;  Sherlock 
Holmes  lives  in  London.  Abner  is  a  man  of  the  hills, 
whose  detective  work  leads  him  among  the  hill  people. 

In  The  Mystery  of  the  Blue  Villa  (1920)  the  author 
reveals  knowledge  of  settings  into  which,  in  real  life, 
his  travels  have  led  him.  Port  Said  figures  in  the 
titular  story — a  story  which  lacks  the  freshness  of 
Mr.  Post's  plots  in  that  it  is  a  variant  of  an  old  one. 


MELVILLE  DAVISSON  POST          305 

It  has  found  subsequent  treatment  by  Albert  Payson 
Terhune  in  A  Catch  in  It  Somewhere*  But  it  is  only 
fair  to  note  that  the  fine  hand  of  coincidence  may  have 
directed  both  Mr.  Post  and  Mr.  Terhune.  Paris,  Nice, 
Cairo,  Ostend,  and  London,  with  Washington  and 
New  York  thrown  in  for  home  flavor,  make  up  the 
settings  of  these  tales.  In  this  volume,  as  in  the  first, 
the  reader  thrills  to  a  series  of  climaxes  in  plots  so 
logically  built  as  to  seem  a  natural  growth  of  events 
leading  to  or  away  from  the  dominant  incident.  They 
add  nothing,  perhaps,  to  the  writer's  fame,  save  in 
their  indication  of  his  broadening  interests  and  in  their 
suggestion  of  the  Great  War  as  an  occasional  back 
ground.  The  Miller  of  Ostend,  indeed,  is  a  superb 
example  of  war  horror.  The  Witch  of  Lecca  points 
to  study  of  witchcraft  and  the  Black  Art,  and  develops 
with  amazing  resourcefulness  a  single  incident.  The 
author's  manner  is  everywhere  derived  from  the  Amer 
ican  plus  the  French:  he  combines  the  ratiocinative 
processes  of  Poe  with  the  dramatic  presentation  of 
Daudet  and  Maupassant. 

Among  Mr.  Post's  most  absorbing  interests  and  pas 
times,  if  one  may  judge  by  his  articles  in  current  maga 
zines,  are  codes  and  ciphers.  Readers  of  Everybody's 
will  recall  a  cover  picturing  a  code  letter  such  as  was 
discovered  in  the  days  of  the  War,  and  illustrating  a 
factual  story  by  Mr.  Post.  He  has  used  a  similar 
code  letter  in  The  Pacifist  (in  The  Mystery  of  the 

*  The  Blue  Book,  July,  1920. 


3o6        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

'Blue  Villa).  His  constant  curiosity  about  the  ways 
men  seek  to  outwit  their  fellow  creatures  promises 
further  entertainment  to  his  large  class  of  readers. 
But  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  before  the  age  of  fifty 
he  had  established  himself  in  narrative  one  of  the  im 
mortals. 

Mr.  Post  has  written  not  only  the  type  of  story 
with  which  he  has  scored  so  successfully  again  and 
again.  Besides  The  Gilded  Chair  (1910),  a  novel  of 
love  and  adventure,  he  published  in  1901 — between  the 
second  and  third  Randolph  Mason  books — Dwellers  in 
the  Hills.  It  is  impossible  to  read  this  work,  which  as 
to  plot  is  a  short  story,  and  in  deliberate  use  of  irrele 
vant  but  enriching  detail  a  novel,  without  the  certainty 
that  it  is  from  Mr.  Post's  own  experiences,  and  that 
he  is  limned  in  the  narrator,  Quiller.  For  the  alien  to 
read  it  is  to  acquaint  himself  with  life  in  the  hills  of 
West  Virginia  some  two  score  years  ago.  For  the 
rural  Southerner  of  Mr.  Post's  generation  to  read  it 
is  to  ride  in  memory  a  gallant  steed — like  Quiller's  El 
Mahdi — along  a  country  road  bordered  by  sedge  and 
ragweed ;  to  note  the  hickories  trembling  in  their  yel 
low  leaves;  to  hear  the  partridge's  "bob  white"  call, 
the  woodpecker's  tap,  and  the  "golden  belted  bee  boom 
ing  past" ;  to  cross  the  stream  fringed  with  bullrushes ; 
to  hear  men's  voices  "reaching  half  a  mile  to  the  graz 
ing  steers  on  the  sodded  knobs" ;  to  meet  a  neighbor's 
boy  astride  a  bag  of  corn,  on  his  way  to  the  grist-mill ; 
to  stop  at  the  blacksmith's,  there  to  watch  the  forging 


MELVILLE  DAVISSON  POST          307 

of  a  horse-shoe;  or  at  the  wagoner's,  to  assist  in  the 
making  of  a  wheel;  to  taste  the  sweet  corn  pone  and 
the  striped  bacon,  and  to  roast  potatoes  in  the  ashes 
— to  re-live  a  sort  of  natural  "mission  furniture" 
period  of  existence.  » 

To  read  the  book  is  also  to  construct  the  boy  that 
was  Melville  Davisson  Post,  a  process  the  more  com 
pelling  because  of  the  half-hidden,  half -expressed  re 
lationships.  If  you  know,  for  instance,  from  Who's 
Who  or  other  source,  that  his  father  was  Ira  Carper 
Post,  you  will  notice  that  "Carper"  creeps  out  in  this 
book  (as  it  does  in  the  Randolph  Mason  books  for 
other  characters),  and  you  find  yourself  wondering 
just  the  kinship  between  fictive  heroine  and  actual  hu 
man  being.  His  use  of  family  and  State  names  is 
constant  throughout  his  volumes:  Randolph,  Davisson, ; 
Blennerhassett  and  Evelyn  Byrd  are  a  few  that  set 
ringing  the  bells  of  history,  conveying  a  mood  that 
holds  long  after  the  peals  have  died  away.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Post  was  born  April  19,  1871,  and  grew  up, 
you  are  sure,  to  appreciate  the  art  of  riding  (which 
consists  in  becoming  part  of  your  horse.)  no  less  than 
his  lessons  in  the  classics.  From  his  fiction  you  are 
so  sure  of  these  truths  that  you  hardly  need  for  con 
firmation  his  factual  articles  testifying  to  the  value  of 
Aristotle,  nor  a  published  photograph  that  portrays 
him  in  riding  togs  with  a  noble  dog  at  his  side. 
Through  the  dramas  he  presents,  you  somehow  have 
borne  in  upon  you  that  he  is  a  community  man  and  a 


3o8        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

statesmen,  one  ready  to  take  his  part  in  all  that  affects 
the  good  of  neighborhood  or  nation.  You  turn  to  the 
record  and  find  your  deductions  or  vaporous  guessings 
established  facts.  He  has  not  all  these  years  devoted 
himself  wholly  to  writing  nor  yet  to  the  law.  He  has 
been  interested  in  railroads  and  coal,  in  education  and 
in  politics.  His  art  of  story-telling  has  been  strength 
ened  by  his  legal  training  and — what  does  not  always 
follow  from  mere  recognition  of  critical  canons — by 
application  of  scientific  standards  to  his  own  fiction. 
He  learned  before  he  was  thirty  that  the  mastery  of 
an  art  depends  only  upon  the  comprehension  of  its 
basic  law;  that  the  short  story,  "like  any  work  of  art, 
is  produced  only  by  painstaking  labor  and  according 
to  certain  structural  rules."  He  is  convinced  that  "the 
laws  that  apply  to  mechanics  and  architecture  are  no 
more  certain  or"  established  than  those  that  apply  to 
the  construction  of  the  short-story."  In  his  enthu 
siasm  for  economy,  he  would  brand  into  the  hand  of 
everybody  the  rule  of  Walter  Pater:  "All  art  does  but 
consist  in  the  removal  of  surplusage." 
Mr.  Post's  books  of  stories: 

The  Strange  Schemes  of  Randolph  Mason,  1896. 

The  Man  of  Last  Resort,  1897. 

Dwellers  in  the  Hills,  1901. 

The  Corrector  of  Destinies,  1908. 

Uncle  Abner,  1919. 

The  Mystery  at  the  Blue  Villa,  1920. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART 

THAT  story  telling  is  the  most  popular  of  all 
kinds  of  discourse,  spoken  or  written,  has  been 
exemplified  from  the  time  of  Homer  to  the 
present.  Whatever  other  elements  may  be  conducive  to 
longevity,  it  is  narrative  which  draws  numbers  to  the 
fireside,  the  printed  page,  or  the  screen.  It  is  for  her 
foremost  ability  to  tell  a  tale  that  Mary  Roberts  Rine- 
hart  is  successful.  The  fact  that  frequently  there  is 
small  residuum  after  the  "story"  is  subtracted  is  one 
proof  of  this  ability.  She  knows  this  fact,  knows 
that  she  is  a  narrator  and  modestly  states  that  some 
day  she  may  be  a  novelist.  For  she  is  aware  that  the 
novelist  is  biographer,  analyst,  philosopher — in  many 
respects  so  much  more  than  the  story  teller.  But,  as 
she  must  also  know,  the  story  teller's  compensations 
are  many  in  the  direction  of  the  dramatic,  the  pio 
turesque  and  the  vivid. 

She  is  popular  because  she  not  only  knows  how  to 
tell  a  story  but  how  to  tell  the  sort  that  most  people 
seek  to-day  for  entertainment.  No  other  writer  reflects 
more  accurately  the  age  of  the  motion  picture.  This 

309 


310        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

is  neither  to  assert  nor  to  deny  that  she  has  been  in 
fluenced  by  motion  picture  technique.  It  is  to  say 
that,  being  a  child  of  the  twentieth  century,  she  recog 
nizes  the  demand  for  rapid  action  and  the  eagerness 
for  one  unique  visual  impression  after  another.  She 
supplies  the  demand  by  unreeling  film  after  film  from 
a  mind  fertile  in  invention  and  prodigal  of  picture- 
story  stuff  which,  translated  in  terms  of  black  and 
white,  reel  off  before  the  reader.  There  is  the  same 
lack  of  depth,  or  "thickness,"  in  her  narrative  which 
the  motion-picture  play  illustrates.  It  is  art  of  two 
dimensions.  Bearing  in  mind  that  comparisons  are 
odorous,  but  without  invidious  comparison,  we  find 
distinguishing  characteristics  in  the  narratives  of  three 
women  writers  who  have  been  associated  with  the  Steel 
City.  Margaret  Deland's  stories  have  the  depth  of  life, 
Willa  Gather's  have  the  finish  of  the  sculptor,  Mary 
Roberts  Rinehart's  have  the  finish  of  the  screen  play. 
Each  method  is  well  in  its  way;  and  if  the  first  two 
contribute,  in  the  main,  to  more  enduring  literature, 
the  third  contributes,  on  the  whole,  to  the  entertain^ 
ment  of  the  greater  number.  Moreover,  each  method 
shares  with  the  others. 

Take,  for  example,  Mrs.  Rinehart's  "Tish"  stories. 
After  reading  them,  one  knows  that  Tish  is  a  daring 
eccentric  spinster  in  the  neighborhood  of  fifty;  that 
to  tell  her  a  thing  is  dangerous  means  no  power  can 
restrain  her;  that  she  has  mastered,  in  middle  age, 
motoring,  riding  and  skating;  that  she  has  run  the 


MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART          311 

hazards  of  camping  out  in  Maine  and  the  dangers  of 
climbing  the  Rockies;  that  she  has  solved  a  mystery 
or  two — that  she  is,  in  short,  the  representative  of  a 
contemporary  type  worthy  to  rank  with  the  best  crea 
tions  of  Mrs.  Rinehart's  contemporaries.  For  Tish, 
though  typical,  is  an  individual  creation.  She  is  promise 
of  what  the  author  of  her  being  may  do  when  she 
writes  the  novel  as  she  will  wish  to  write  it.  And  yet, 
to  revert  to  the  point  under  discussion,  when  one  reads 
about  Tish  it  is  the  chronicle  of  her  adventures  that 
gives  pleasure.  One  recalls  from  Mind  Over  Motor 
Tish  triumphantly  whizzing  around  the  race  course  in 
Jasper's  new  car;  from  The  Simple  Lifers,  Tish  with 
a  clamshell,  "Indian  nippers,"  advancing  upon  Percy's 
beard;  from  Tish's  Spy,  Tish,  buoyed  by  a  life-belt, 
headed  for  Island  Number  Eleven;  from  My  Country 
Tish  of  Thee,  Tish  capturing  a  band  of  real  bandits. 
All  the  pictures  are  screen  studies,  or  pictures  that 
cry  out  for  screen  presentation. 

"Any  one  who  has  a  sense  of  proportion  can  write 
a  short  story,"  Mrs.  Rinehart  has  said  to  interviewers. 
"The  main  thing  is  to  realize  its  essentials.  The  in 
stinctive  sense  of  what  to  tell  and  what  to  leave  to 
the  reader's  imagination  is  what  makes  the  born  story 
teller."  In  addition  to  knowing  that  action  is  de 
manded  by  men  readers,  who  go  to  baseball  and  polo, 
even  if  women,  who  are  more  introspective,  are  con 
tent  to  read  analytical  paragraphs,  she  believes  that 
suspense  is  the  vise  that  holds  the  reader.  Therefore, 


312        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

she  clamps  it  on  early  in  the  action,  quite  often  hinting 
at  just  enough  of  the  denouement  to  cause  curiosity 
as  to  what  it  was  all  about  and  how  it  all  happened. 
She  is  a  master  of  the  art  of  suggestion.  She  believes 
that  in  a  story  the  story's  the  thing:  "You  must  have 
a  good  plot"  (a  particular  in  which  the  story  is  different 
from  the  novel).  She  recommends  acquaintance  with 
the  market,  since  the  writing  of  short  stories  is  a 
game,  and  certain  subjects  are  more  or  less  in  demand. 
Some  subjects  she  regards  as  taboo — for  instance, 
religion. 

Mary  Roberts  was  born  in  Pittsburgh,  August  12, 
1876.  After  being  graduated  from  high  school,  she 
took  the  training  school  course  for  nurses  offered  by 
the  Pittsburgh  Homeopathic  Hospital.  That  she  draws 
largely  from  her  hospital  career  is  evident  from  her 
most  successful  fiction,  from  The  Amazing  Adventures 
of  Letitia  Carberry  (1911)  (albeit  the  title  doth  pro 
test  too  much),  through  K  (1915),  the  first  long  story 
of  its  kind,  and  Love  Stories  (1919).  Though  not  a 
few  authors  have  written  hospital  sketches,  yet  not 
one  of  them  before  Mrs.  Rinehart  wrote  a  body  of 
narrative  contributing  definitely  to  local  color  and 
setting  through  hospital  scenes  and  business.  Even 
when  she  writes  a  story  that  has  its  action  outside 
the  hospital,  she  introduces  bits  of  lore  obviously 
gathered  in  her  training  career,  odds  and  ends  that 
rise  spontaneously  and  become  part  of  the  whole.  They 
form,  incidentally,  part  of  the  realistic  detail  by  which 


MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART          313 

d  la  Defoe,  the  author,  conveys  the  illusion  of  reality. 
For  instance,  you  are  rather  sure  Tish  was  in  the  Maine 
Woods;  for  you  remember  that  a  leech  attached  itself 
to  her  leg  and  was  allowed  to  remain  (by  Aggie's 
advice)  :  "One  must  leave  it  on  until  it  was  full  and 
round  and  couldn't  hold  any  more,  and  then  it  dropped 
off." 

On  April  21,  1896,  according  to  Who's  Who,  Mary 
Roberts,  not  yet  twenty,  was  married  to  Dr.  Stanley 
Marshall  Rinehart.  In  1905,  after  the  birth  of  her 
three  sons,  Mrs.  Rinehart  began  to  write.  For  the 
magazines  she  wrote  poems  and  short  stories — her 
first  story  went  for  $35 — and  in  1907  she  produced 
her  first  play,  Double  Life.  About  this  time  Robert  H. 
Davis,  of  Munsey's,  suggested  that  she  try  a  serial. 
The  result  was  The  Circular  Staircase  (1908),  a  mys 
tery  story,  which  she  sold  for  $400.  In  1914  she  said 
she  would  not  sell  it  for  less  than  $20,000.  This  long 
story  brought  her  popularity,  popularity  increased  by 
another  mystery,  The  Man  in  Lower  Ten  (1909). 
When  a  Man  Marries  was  also  published  in  1909, 
after  which  followed  The  Window  at  the  White  Cat 
(1910).  Her  deftness  in  plot  construction,  her  skill 
in  arousing  suspense,  her  ability  to  hold  off  the  climax 
relentlessly  while  apparently  advancing  relentlessly 
toward  it,  and  her  final  seeming  clever  solution  of  the 
mystery — all  are  manifest  in  The  Window  at  the  White 
Cat.  There  is  the  lawyer  narrator,  Knox,  whose  em 
ployment  as  mouthpiece  makes  for  reality;  there  is 


OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

the  disappearance  of  Allen  Fleming,  a  piece  of  paper 
bearing  the  sign  of  Eleven  Twenty  Two,  the  only  clue, 
there  is  his  daughter  Margery,  who  comes  to  the 
lawyer  (the  love  story  is  drawn  in,  at  once,  with  a 
tempestuous  tug  at  the  ears) ;  there  is  the  rival,  young 
Wardrop,  former  secretary  of  Allen  Fleming,  about 
whom  suspicion  is  thrown  (with  a  rather  strong  odor 
of  red  herrings) ;  there  is  the  concomitant  disappear 
ance  of  Miss  Jane,  sister  of  Letitia  (not  the  Letitia 
who  is  Tish,  however)  ;  there  are  the  stolen  pearls,  the 
lost  traveling  bag,  the  murder  of  Fleming  and  the 
final  solution  of  the  mystery  at  The  White  Cat.  Clever 
"detective  story"  stuff  it  is,  much  like  that  of  Anna 
Katherine  Green  and  numerous  followers  of  Poe, 
without  particular  distinguishing  marks. 

The  Amazing  Adventures  followed,  1911.  The 
volume  includes  three  stories,  in  which  the  first,  a 
mystery,  introduces  the  heroine  of  all.  Three  Printers 
of  Penzance  and  That  Awful  Night,  which  fulfill  the 
requisites  of  the  short  story,  fill  out  the  book;  but  the 
two  hundred  pages  in  which  Letitia  turns  detective  at 
the  hospital  are  the  most  important.  Mrs.  Rinehart 
may  have  found  the  germinal  idea  in  Foe's  The  Mur 
ders  in  the  Rue  Morgue.  So  similar  is  the  likeness 
at  one  point  that,  just  as  the  reader  begins  to  wonder 
whether  she  will  solve  the  story  similarly,  she  takes 
occasion  to  mention  The  Murders  in  such  manner  as  to 
convey  that  her  denouement  will  be  different.  The 


MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART          315 

solving,  however,  lacks  the  convincingness  of  Foe's 
story,  as  the  manner  lacks  his  clarity. 

The  author  recognized  the  value  of  the  material  in 
her  enterprising  old  maid  and  utilized  it  in  stories 
published  from  1912  on.  In  1916  five  of  them  were 
collected  under  the  title,  Tish.  For  the  title  of  one, 
instanced  above,  we  have  not  been  able  to  forgive  her : 
My  Country  Tish  of  Thee.  She  likes  punning  as  well, 
almost,  as  the  Elizabethans  and,  admittedly,  she 
ordinarily  succeeds  better  than  in  this  perpetration. 
When  Aggie  of  The  Amazing  Adventures  broke  the 
thermometer  in  her  mouth,  Tommy  Andrews  remarked 
of  her  that  having  been  quicksilvered  she'd  now  prob 
ably  be  reflecting;  when  'Lizzie,  the  other  crony,  who 
narrates  My  Country  fell  from  her  horse,  which  stepped 
on  and  over  her,  Tish  said  something  about  his 
having  walked  across  a  "bridge  of  size."  On  the 
whole,  this  volume  is  the  best  collection  Mrs.  Rinehart 
has  published.  To  "Pendennis,"  of  The  Forum,  she 
said  in  1918:  "Every  man  is  a  hundred  types;  he's  a 
Puritan  and  a  rake,  a  coward  and  a  soldier,  a  shirker 
and  a  worker,  a  priest  and  a  sinner.  All  the  writer  does 
is  to  take  the  dominant  characteristic  of  that  man 
and  lay  stress  on  it."  Surely,  she  put  much  of  her 
self  into  Tish,  wide  as  seems  the  gap  between  the 
incorrigibly  eccentric  spinster  and  the  lady  of  "erect 
force,  of  swift  judgment,  of  irreproachable  dignity;  in 
manner  gentle,  feminine."  They  share  a  love  of  nature: 
Tish's  mountains  and  woods  are  to  her  a  forest 


3i6       OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

of  Arden  no  less  than  to  Mrs.  Rinehart ;  doubtless  the 
latter  shares  the  sense  of  discomfort  the  three  spinsters 
felt,  but  never  would  she  have  turned  back  with  Aggie 
and  Lizzie;  she  grimly  enjoys  the  conquering  of  diffi 
culties,  one  fancies,  as  Tish  enjoyed  struggling;  and, 
in  diverse  ways,  they  share  a  sense  of  humor. 

It  is,  again,  the  background  of  reality,  of  such 
settings  as  Mrs.  Rinehart  has  seen  summer  after  sum 
mer,  which  fixes  the  all  but  unbelievable  adventures 
of  the  three  maiden  ladies.  So  much,  then,  for  the 
three  tales  of  Tish  which  show  her  going  back  to 
nature.  That  the  author  has  insight  into  character  of 
another  sort  is  displayed  in  Like  a  Wolf  on  the  Fold 
wherein  the  astute  Syrian,  Tufik,  is  as  individual  and  as 
typical  as  toothless  Aggie,  fat  Lizzie  and  enterprising 
Tish,  all  of  whom  finally  flee  from  his  outrageously 
calculated  dependence  upon  his  "mothers."  The  pre 
sentation  of  his  character  gains  from  the  method  best 
adapted  to  narrative — the  objective.  Tufik  acts,  and 
his  acts  are  colored  by  the  comments  of  the  ladies; 
but  the  author  keeps  out  of  his  mind  and  proves,  again, 
her  ability  to  succeed  by  steering  clear  of  the  psycho 
logical. 

Meantime,  beginning  about  1909,  Mrs.  Rinehart 
was  writing  stories  of  another  sort,  which  appeared 
that  year,  in  1913,  1914,  and  1915  in  various  maga 
zines  and  which  were  gathered  up  under  the  title 
of  Affinities,  and  published  in  1920.  Apropos  of  her 
nomenclature,  the  author  was  asked  in  1914  whether  it 


MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART    317 

was  difficult  to  get  names  for  her  people.  She  smiled. 
"Once  I  was  invited,"  she  said,  to  an  affinity  party. 
I  did  not  go,  but  it  suggested  a  story  to  me.  Of  course, 
I  was  very  careful  not  to  use  the  names  of  any  one 
whom  I  knew.  After  the  story  came  out  I  had  a 
letter  from  a  man  in  the  West  saying  that  his  name 
was  Ferdinand,  and  that  his  wife,  his  affinity,  in  fact 
the  whole  set,  had  names  identical  with  the  ones  I 
had  used  in  my  story." 

The  title  story  may  be  cited,  further,  by  way  of  in 
dicating  the  all  but  unavoidable  O.  Henry  influence. 
Fanny  (the  assumed  narrator)  and  Ferd  Jackson  are 
affinities.  The  complication,  at  the  basis  of  the  sur 
prise,  lies  in  the  fact  that  Day  (Fanny's  husband)  and 
Ida  Jackson  (Ferd's  wife)  are  also  affinities,  and  un 
known  to  the  narrator  and  her  picnic  party  are  with 
another  group  on  a  neighboring  island.  After  an 
exciting  incident  of  a  borrowed  boat  and  a  thrilling 
automobile  race  across  country,  Fanny  and  Ferd 
reach  home.  The  shock  emerges  in  the  knowledge  each 
acquires  of  the  parts  played  by  Day  and  Ida.  Similar 
in  construction  are  The  Family  Friend,  and  Clara's 
Little  Escapade,  testifying  to  Mrs.Rinehart's  mastery 
of  surprise.  In  all,  the  passing  fad  of  a  few  years 
ago  for  affinities  is  treated  in  humorously  satirical 
vein.  The  Borrowed  House  and  Sauce  for  the  Gander 
entrench  upon  the  debutante  ground  which  Mrs.  Rine- 
hart  worked  to  best  advantage  in  Bab — A  Sub-Deb. 


3i8        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

The  book  was  published  in  1917,  after  appearing  as  a 
series  of  stories  in  periodicals. 

Mrs.  Rinehart  has  stated  that  her  creed  is  service, 
and  she  has  illustrated  how  her  books  bear  it  out 
by  reference  to  these  whimsical  fabrications  of  Bab's 
sub-debutante  days.  Bab,  she  says,  is  typical  of  the 
service  we  give  to  that  brilliantly  adorned  figure  of 
our  first  dream  ambitions — romance.  So  again,  as  in 
the  person  of  Letitia  Carberry,  Mrs.  Rinehart  draws 
upon  her  own  personality  for  the  psychology  of  Bab 
or  draws  upon  what  she  might  have  been.  In  Bab 
Mrs.  Rinehart  has  succeeded  in  approaching  and  de 
scribing,  through  narrative,  the  mental  condition  of  a 
young  girl  who,  surrounded  by  wealth  and  culture,  is 
eager  to  escape  from  the  reality  of  life,  who  as  in 
dicated,  is  romantic.  She  is  another  of  the  gauges 
the  author  has  flung  down  to  her  future  novel.  The 
fact  that  little  Mary  Roberts  Rinehart,  2nd,  who  made 
a  grandmother  of  Mary  Roberts  Rinehart,  ist,  at  43, 
is  familiarly  known  as  Babs,  may  be  an  indication  that 

i  the  fictive  heroine  is  popular  in  the  family. 

j  r     Tish  and  Bab  are  frequently  spoken  of  as  though 

S  Characters  in  novels.  But  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  they  figured,  first,  in  a  series  of  short  stories. 
The  quite  unexplainable  tradition  among  publishers 
that  books  of  short  stories  do  not  sell  so  easily  as 
novels  is  probably  accountable  for  such  works  as  Mr. 
Tarkington's  Penrod  and  Mrs.  Rinehart's  Bab  appear 
ing  in  novel  disguise. 


MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART 

From  1912  to  1917  Mrs.  Rinehart  published,  from 
time  to  time,  a  number  of  hospital  stories  in  which 
love  is  supreme.  They  are  included  in  Love  Stories 
(1919).  There  are  critics  who  think  the  strongest 
element  of  her  success  lies  in  her  appreciation  of  the 
joys  and  sorrows  of  the  tender  passion.  Twenty- 
Two,  Jane,  In  the  Pavilion,  God's  Fool,  and  The 
Miracle  run  the  gamut  of  this  emotion  as  it  may  be 
found,  in  varying  aspects,  in  the  private  ward  or  Ward 
G,  in  the  heart  of  the  guiltless  or  the  guilty.  There 
is  the  young  probationer,  N.  Jane  Brown,  who  by  a 
daring  act  loses  her  newly  achieved  position  but  saves 
a  boy's  life,  and  whose  case  is  happily  solved  through 
the  interest  of  the  patient  in  Twenty-Two.  There  is 
another  Jane,  whom  temper  alone  has  brought  to  the 
hospital  and  who  is  conquered  by  the  application  of 
the  principle  that  fire  drives  out  fire.  There  is  the 
nurse  who  marries,  just  to  oblige  him,  a  supposedly  dy 
ing  gentleman,  and  for  whom  he  recovers.  There  is 
the  Magdalen  of  The  Miracle,  which  touches  the  misery 
of  the  degraded  woman  with  an  unusual  sympathy  and 
which  shows  the  regenerating  influence  of  the  child.  Of 
them  all,  God's  Fool  offers  the  one  character  worthy 
of  being  placed  alongside  Tish  and  Bab.  The  volume 
includes  a  war  story,  "Are  We  Downhearted?  No!" 
which  we  should  have  liked  to  see  published,  rather, 
with  Twenty-Three  and  a  Half  Hours'  Leave  (1919). 
The  latter  is  one  of  the  most  humorous  stories  result 
ing  from  the  Great  Conflict  and  grows  out  of  the  au- 


320        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

thorns  intimate  acquaintance,  through  her  soldier  son 
and  her  own  war  work,  with  actual  conditions. 

It  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  in  these  years  Mrs". 
Rinehart's  most  impressive  accomplishment  has  lain 
in  her  longer  stories,  her  drama,  and  recently,  in  the 
motion  picture  dramatization  of  Dangerous  Days  and 
It's  a  Great  Life.  It  has  been  urged  that  some  genius 
may  do  for  the  movies  what  Shakespeare  did  for  the 
drama.  This  person  might  well  be  Mrs.  Rinehart.  She 
has  the  gift  in  that  direction;  she  has  evinced  increas 
ing  interest  in  the  medium.  Only  the  other  day  she 
had  a  moving  picture  projector  installed  in  her  own 
home,  finding  it  helpful  to  study  picture  production 
at  close  range.  The  New  York  Tribune  of  July  18, 
1920,  is  responsible  for  the  statement  that  the  moving 
picture  addition  to  her  work  necessitates  her  going  to 
the  California  Coast  about  three  times  a  year. 

Her  earlier  long  stories  were  continued  in  Where 
There's  a  Will  (1912),  The  Case  of  Jennie  Brice 
(1913),  The  After  House  (1914)  and  The  Street  of 
Seven  Stars  (1914).  The  psychic  tale  K  was  followed 
by  a  romance  of  lovable  Otto  IX,  "Long  Live  the 
King!3'  (1917)  and  The  Amazing  Interlude  (1917), 
a  war  theme  of  feminine  courage.  A  Poor  Wise  Man, 
her  latest  long  work,  was  first  published  serially  in  The 
Ladies  Home  Journal  (1920).  Among  her  dramas 
are  Seven  Days  (1909),  and  Cheer  Up  (1913). 

Through  Glacier  Park  revealed  this  author  a  pow 
erful  writer  of  expository  and  descriptive  prose.  Her 


MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART          321 

articles  on  the  war,  conceded  to  be  among  the  most 
vivid  and  accurate  written,  were  sent  from  the  vari 
ous  army  fronts  she  visited.  On  one  occasion,  accord 
ing  to  her  story,  she  reached  France  as  a  stowaway 
across  the  Channel.  She  interviewed  the  Queen  of 
England,  the  Queen  of  Belgium,  General  Foch,  and 
was  decorated  by  the  Belgian  Queen. 

Mrs.  Rinehart  lives  at  Sewickley,  but  has  her  office 
in  Pittsburgh,  where  she  works  daily.  After  the 
manner  of  the  modern  professional,  she  waits  not  for 
inspiration,  but  picks  up  her  pen  and  writes. 

On  her  office  wall  hangs  this  motto :  "Ideas  and  hard 
work  are  the  keys  to  all  success." 

Mrs.  Rinehart's  Short  Stories : 

The  Amazing  Adventures  of  Letitia  Carberry, 

1911. 

Tish,  1916. 

Bab,  A  Sub-Deb,  1917. 
Love  Stories,  1919. 

Twenty-three  and  a  Half  HourJ  Leave,  1919. 
Affinities,  1920. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

BOOTH    TARKINGTON 

NOT  many  moons   ago   we  heard  an  anecdote 
about  an  editor.     Asked  to  name  the  best  short 
story  he  had  published  in  the  year  he  imme 
diately  responded :  "Why,  that  one  by  Jones-Smith — 
the  one,  you  know " 

"And  why  is  it  the  best?"  the  gadfly  insisted. 

The  editor  reviewed  his  story  standards  and  some 
what  dazedly  replied  that,  after  all,  he  hadn't  meas 
ured  the  yarn ;  he  just  liked  it.  According  to  his  tape- 
line — well,  Green-Brown's  about  so  and  so  was  su 
perior. 

When  asked  in  the  days  when  William  Sylvanus 
Baxter  was  seventeen,  "Who  is  your  favorite  short 
story  writer  among  the  men?"  we  replied  without 
hesitation,  "Booth  Tarkington."  Of  late,  we  have  to 
admit  that,  rated  by  certain  standards,  he  must  give 
place  to  A  and  B  and  C. 

First  of  all,  Mr.  Tarkington  is  a  writer  of  long 
stories :  he  is  neither  short-story  writer  nor  novelist. 
For  though  dissenting  from  Gouverneur  Morris's  re 
mark  to  the  late  Joyce  Kilmer  (New  York  Times, 

3* 


BOOTH  TARKINGTON  323 

June  20,  1915),  that  in  America  we  have  had  only 
one  novel — Huckleberry  Finn — and  though  ranking 
The  Turmoil  highest  among  Mr.  Tarkington's  works 
as  a  novel,  we  agree  with  Mr.  Morris  that  it  lacks 
the  weight  of  such  a  work  as  Henry  Esmond.  In  the 
second  place,  Mr.  Tarkington  or  his  publisher  has  the 
vexatious  custom  of  running  his  best  recent  short 
stories  into  books  so  split  into  chapters  that  the  story 
boundaries  are  obliterated.  Witness  Penrod  and 
Seventeen.  In  the  third  place,  his  stories  lack  plot 
value.  He  is,  himself,  not  concerned  about  plot. 
(Query:  What  does  James  Branch  Cabell  mean,  in 
Beyond  Life,  when  he  says:  "For  the  rest  his  [Mr. 
Tarkiugton's]  plots  are  the  sort  of  thing  that  makes 
criticism  seem  cruel"  ?)  As  a  corollary,  he  rarely 
comes  up  to  his  promises.  He  fumbles  the  denoue 
ments  of  his  stories,  the  long  ones  in  particular,  which 
work  up  greatly  and  expectantly  to  a  height,  only  to 
fall  Luciferwise,  not  into  a  pit  of  horror,  but  to  a 
level  of  disappointing  mediocrity.  He  seems,  in  com 
pleting  some  of  his  stories,  to  say :  "There,  now  I've 
done  enough.  The  tale  will  go  through  on  its  own 
momentum."  In  two  or  three  instances,  the  latter 
part  sheers  off  so  abruptly  from  the  first  half  or  three- 
quarters  of  the  action  as  to  drop  the  reader  with  a 
thud  into  real  life  out  of  pages  the  author's  workman 
ship  has  been  at  pains  to  make  climactic  in  the  fourth 
dimension.  Witness  The  Magnificent  Ambersons. 
The  book  Seventeen  is  an  exception.  In  the  words  of 


324        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Mr.  Cabell,  its  "winding-up"  is  "just  the  species  of 
necromancy  attainable  by  no  other  living  author."  In 
the  fifth  place — but  why  continue  objecting?  The  rea 
sons  we  adduce  against  his  stories  weigh  little  in  com 
parison  with  our  confessed  admiration. 

This  admiration  rests  on  something  deeper  than 
merely  technical  grounds.  His  way  of  looking  at  life, 
through  successive  periods  of  interest  in  realism,  ro 
manticism,  and  satire ;  his  experiences  and  observations 
translated  into  fiction  with  unsurpassed  artistic  skill; 
his  modernity,  by  which  he  has  represented  a  quarter 
century  of  American  life  just  elapsed — these  are  more 
human  and  therefore  more  powerful  contacts.  His 
understanding,  his  sympathy,  and  his  infectious  humor 
make  for  the  universality  of  his  appeal.  Frequently 
we  hear  extolled  the  crackling  thorns  of  a  mordant 
wit,  or,  at  the  other  extreme,  horse-play  and  silliness; 
then  we  hesitate  to  admit  the  tender  impeachment  that 
we  have  a  sense  of  humor.  But  when  we  read  Booth 
Tarkington  our  confidence  is  restored.  And  if  we  have 
only  appreciation  of  humor  as  he  points  it  out,  we 
prefer  keeping  that  appreciation.  It  is  difficult  to  say 
with  the  requisite  degree  of  difference  what  should  be 
said  about  Mr.  Tarkington's  work.  In  the  end,  it  is 
necessary  to  take  refuge  in  some  platitude  which  of  a 
sudden  glows  with  new  meaning ;  for  example,  the  old 
shopworn  epigram,  "Style  is  the  man."  It  is  the  man 
Tarkington,  the  personality  revealed  in  his  works,  who 
compels  admiration. 


BOOTH  TARKINGTON  325 

Newton  Booth  Tarkington  was  born  at  Indianapolis, 
Indiana,  July  21,  1869.  When  he  was  four  or  five 
years  of  age  he  revealed  a  gift  of  extraordinary 
imagination,  or  at  least  qualified  as  a  youngster  of 
make-believe  and  let's-pretend  proclivities.  He  sur 
rounded  himself  by  a  family  bearing  the  descriptive 
cognomen  of  Hunchberg  (Did  it  evolve,  jobberwocky 
fashion,  from  The  Schonberg-Cotta  Family  and 
Hunchback  ?).  If  he  kept  the  original  characters  and 
nomenclature  in  the  story  he  wrote  thirty-five  years 
later,  he  created  at  the  age  of  four  or  five  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Hunchberg;  the  young  gentlemen,  Tom,  Noble 
and  Grandee;  the  gay  and  pretty  young  ladies,  Miss 
Queen,  Miss  Marble,  and  Miss  Molanna;  the  Uncle, 
Col.  Hunchberg,  and  the  amiable  but  decrepit  Aunt 
Hunchberg.  It  is  not  on  record,  however,  that  he, 
owned  an  imaginary  dog,  by  name  Simpledoria,  or 
that  he  was  an  invalid  child,  like  Little  Hamilton 
Swift,  Jr. 

When  he  was  eleven  years  old  he  established  a 
friendship  with  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  by  whom  he 
was  influenced  so  long  as  the  Hoosier  Poet  lived,  and 
to  whom  he  dedicated  the  Hunchberg  story,  Beasley's 
Christmas  Party  (1909). 

After  a  year  at  Phillips  Exeter  Academy,  Mr.  Tark 
ington  studied  at  Purdue  University ;  then  he  went  to 
Princeton,  where  in  1893  he  took  his  first  degree.  In 
1899  his  alma  mater  conferred  upon  him  the  degree 
of  Master  of  Arts,  in  1918  the  Doctorate  of  Literature. 


326        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Of  the  Tarkington  tradition  at  Princeton  there  is 
no  need  to  write.  Everybody  has  heard  of  the  gay 
youth  from  the  Mid-West,  who  seemingly  sang  his 
way  through  the  halls  of  learning  and  whose  "Danny 
Deever"  has  become  the  subject  of  ballad  and  limerick. 
Robert  Cortes  Holliday,  author  of  the  entertaining 
volume,  Booth  Tarkington  (1918),  comments  on  this 
accomplishment  of  "Tark"  and  upon  the  fact  that  many 
of  his  characters  sing.  Pietro  Tobigli  of  Aliens  (In 
tlie  Arena)  sings ;  David  Beasley's  darkey  sings ;  Pen- 
rod  sings;  the  serenaders  in  Seventeen  sing.  And, 
however  delectable  or  horrible  the  sounds  may  be  to 
the  audience  of  the  vocalist,  the  result  for  the  reader 
is,  in  Mr.  Holliday's  word's,  "an  infectious  air  of  youth 
and  good  old  summer  time." 

Just  after  leaving  college,  Mr.  Tarkington  was  as-* 
sociated  (in  1896  and  1897)  with  a  group  which  pub 
lished  a  small  magazine,  John-a-Dr earns.  As  staff 
artist,  he  signed  his  name  to  the  drawings;  but  as 
literary  contributor  he  used  the  nom  de  plume  of  Cecil 
Wood  ford.  There  is  a  legend  that  having  written  a 
playlet,  The  Kisses  of  Marjorie,  he  set  about  illustrat 
ing  it  and  that  as  he  looked  upon  his  handiwork  he 
received  inspiration  for  Monsieur  Beaucaire. 

One  has  only  to  glance  at  the  drawings  in  Asa  Don 
Dickinson's  booklet,  Booth  Tarkington  (Doubleday, 
Page  and  Co.),  to  agree  with  Mr.  Holliday:  "Of 
course,  it  is  very  'nice'  that  Mr.  Tarkington  liked  to 
'draw/  and  (though  it  is  difficult  to  say  why)  every- 


BOOTH  TARKINGTON  327 

body  likes  him  the  better  for  it;  but  the  upshot  of  the 
matter  is,  it  is  perfectly  splendid  that  he  concluded  that 
he  couldn't." 

Beyond  his  connection  with  John-d'-Dreams,  Booth 
Tarkington  seemed  to  do  very  little  for  half  a  dozen 
years  after  leaving  Princeton.  He  idled,  enjoyed  the 
life  of  his  home  town,  a  gallant  among  the  ladies, 
a  guest  at  such  grand-scale  gatherings  as  he  has  re 
corded  in  The  Magnificent  Ambersons.  And  as  cer 
tainly  as  Penrod  and  William  Sylvanus  reflect  not  only 
the  boyhood  and  adolescence  of  his  nephew  but  also 
his  own  youth,  so  must  Lucius  Brutus  Allen  draw  upon 
his  adult  experience. 

In  reality,  the  author  was  extracting  from  those 
years  just  the  sustenance  he  needed.  He  was  living, 
and  he  was  teaching  himself  to  write.  No  writer  can 
survive  without  the  indissolubly  joined  matter  and 
manner:  only  life  affords  the  first,  only  individual 
effort  the  second.  "Writing  is  a  trade,"  Mr.  Tarking- 
ton  said,  "and,  like  any  other  trade,  it  must  be  learned 
We  must  serve  our  apprenticeship;  but  we  must  work 
it  out  alone.  We  must  learn  by  failure  and  by  repeated 
effort  how  the  thing  should  be  done."  He  kept  on 
writing  and  re-writing  poems,  plays  and  stories.  And 
for  eight  years  he  received  rejection-slips.  For  five 
years  his  gross  returns  were  $22.50.  Cherry  and 
^Beaucaire  long  remained  unsold.  It  was  after  he  pub 
lished  his  first  novel,  The  Gentleman  from  Indiana, 
that  McClure^s  accepted  Beaucaire  (published  in  book 


328        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

form  in  1900) ;  and  after  seventeen  rejections  that 
Cherry  appeared  in  1903. 

These  early  works,  with  the  addition  of  The  Two 
Van  Revels  (1902),  embody  the  leading  characteristics 
of  the  author's  genius:  realism  merging  into  roman 
ticism,  exemplified  in  the  story  of  The  Great  Harkless ; 
realism  and  satire  illuminated  by  imagination,  revealed 
in  the  story  of  Sudgeberry  of  Nassau  Hall  in  the  days 
before  the  American  Revolution;  romance  triumphant 
in  the  story  of  the  dashing  Frenchman  and  Lady  Mary 
Carlyle  of  the  days  when  powder  and  patches  and 
courtliness  prevailed;  romance  exaggerated  in  the  love 
story  of  the  Mexican  War  period.  Humor  and  wit 
vitalize  all  the  works.  The  Gentleman  -from  Indiana 
has  been  praised  as  the  wittiest  of  American  novels. 

Mr.  Tarkington  is  primarily  a  realist,  a  humorist, 
and  a  satirist  of  the  scalpel  order.  But  his  orientation 
was  somewhat  obscured  in  the  zenith  of  the  romantic 
revival,  and  he  followed  the  fashion  set  by  Stevenson, 
a  fashion  exploited  by  Stanley  Weyman,  Winston 
Churchill,  Mary  Johnston,  and  Paul  Leicester  Ford. 
His  place  in  the  chronology  of  literature  accounts  for 
the  indubitably  hybrid  nature  of  his  efflorescence. 

In  1902-1903  Mr.  Tarkington  was  a  member  of  the 
Indiana  House  of  Representatives.  It  is  interesting 
to  surmise,  from  reading  In  the  Arena  (1905),  a  col 
lection  of  "real"  short  stories — the  only  collection,  we 
believe,  left  intact  as  stories — that  if  he  had  "gone 
in  big"  for  politics,  he  might  have  produced  The  Great 


BOOTH  TARKINGTON  329 

American  Political  Novel.  But  when  we  consider, 
further,  that  he  might  have  foresworn  writing  alto 
gether,  we  are  thankful  that  his  political  career  is  re 
garded  as  a  sort  of  mild  joke.  It  is  said  that  he  was 
never  able  to  speak.  The  probable  reason  is,  though 
we  have  not  heard  it  alleged,  that  he  scorned  the  pal 
pable  sham  and  fustian  back  of  most  oratory,  without 
which  it  was  probably  difficult  to  gain  attention.  One 
has  only  to  read  The  Need  of  Money,  Hector,  and 
Mrs.  Protheroe,  to  be  convicted  of  the  truth  that  those 
three  R's,  poor  old  Uncle  Billy  Rollinson,  the  Hon. 
Hector  J.  Ransom,  and  fatuous  Alonzo  Rawson,  rep 
resent  the  three  types  of  orators  beyond  which  there 
are  few  others.  Can  one  imagine  Booth  Tarkington, 
with  his  perfectly  good  brain  and  an  abnormally  de 
veloped  sense  of  humor,  making  a  spectacle  similar  to 
one  of  these — even  the  Hamlet-like  Hector  J.? 

In  the  Arena  reflects  remarkably  the  author's  com 
prehension  of  political  tactics  and  situations  and  their 
availability  for  story  material.  For  diversity  of  sub 
ject-matter  subordinated  to  the  ruling  topic,  for  real 
ism  made  palatable  by  the  flavor  of  humor,  and  for 
restraint  the  collection  ranks  first  among  political 
stories.  Restraint  is  practiced  almost  too  obviously; 
it  is  a  virtue  displayed  even  in  the  dialogue,  as  in 
Alonzo's  conversation  with  Mrs.  Protheroe: 

"Do  you  remember  that  it  was  said  that  Napoleon 


330        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

once  attributed  the  secret  of  his  power  over  other  men 
to  one  quality?"  the  lady  asked. 

"I  am  an  admirer  of  Napoleon,"  returned  the  Sena 
tor  from  Stackpole.     "I  admire  all  great  men." 
"He  said  that  he  held  men  by  his  reserve." 
"It  can  be  done,"  observed  Alonzo,  and  stopped, 
feeling  that  it  was  more  reserved  to  add  nothing  to 
the  sentence. 

Boss  Gorgett  illuminates  the  devious  way  of  the 
political  boss.  Farwell  Knowles  threatens  the  peni 
tentiary  for  the  henchmen  of  Lafe  Gorgett  who  have 
planned  to  stuff  a  ballot-box.  Gorgett  retaliates  with 
a  threat  to  expose  the  private  life  of  Knowles. 
Knowles  is  innocent  of  wrong  intention,  but  he  has 
been  indiscreet.  In  the  end,  the  reader  is  ready  to 
sanction  the  dictum  of  the  Boss:  "The  only  way  to 
play  politics,  whatever  you're  for,  is  to  learn  the  game 
first." 

Mrs.  Pr other oe,  companion-piece  to  Boss  Gorgett, 
throws  light  of  equal  brilliance  on  the  why  and  where 
fore  of  the  lady  lobbyist.  But  our  preference  among 
the  six  stories  is  Hector.  The  characterization  is  better 
than  life;  for  the  subordinate  qualities  of  each  indi 
vidual  are  omitted  or  subordinated  to  his  dominant 
trait.  And  the  plot,  growing  logically  out  of  character, 
is  sufficient  to  support  the  warp  and  woof  of  the 
story  fabric. 

The  Conquest  of  Canaan,  a  novel,  was  published  in 


BOOTH  TARKINGTON  331 

1905,  the  same  year  of  The  Beautiful  Lady,  a  novel 
ette.  The  latter  reflects  the  French  influence,  as  it  is 
reflected  in  Beaucaire,  but  with  less  of  action  and  more 
of  feeling,  through  the  Italian  gentleman,  Ansolini. 
who  became  a  bill-board  that  he  might  educate  his 
nieces,  through  the  Prince  Caravacioli  and  through  its 
setting.  The  young  American,  Lambert  R.  Poor,  Jr., 
and  the  Beautiful  Lady  supply  contrast.  As  a  delight 
ful  trifle,  Mr.  Tarkington' s  biographer  thinks  the  work 
should  be  preserved  in  the  World's  Literature  of  Great 
Trifles. 

Mr.  Tarkington  numbers  among  his  favorite  French 
authors  (according  to  Mr.  Dickinson)  Dumas,  Balzac, 
Daudet  and  Cherbuliez.  He  likes  Rome,  Naples,  the 
Island  of  Capri,  and  Paris.  His  Own  People  (1907) 
recounts  the  adventures  of  a  young  American  abroad 
and  his  experience  with  a  false  Countess,  but  his  ability 
to  handle  locale  is  superior  to  the  story  which  is  other 
wise  negligible.  The  Guest  of  Quesnay  (1908)  is  a 
sort  of  metaphysical  side-step  or  excursion.  After 
Beasley's  Christmas  Party,  however,  the  author  carved 
another  tremendous  trifle  in  Beauty  and  the  Jacobin 
( 191 1 ).  This  work  was  a  turning-point  in  the  sequence 
of  the  Tarkington  stories  and  dramas.  In  The  Flirt 
(1913)  he  revealed  the  triumph  of  the  satirist;  he  was 
yet  to  develop  the  power  and  art  of  the  vivisectionist. 
This  art  which  he  approached  in  the  boy  Hedrick 
Madison,  brother  of  the  coquette,  he  conquered  and 
carried  off  in  the  heroes  of  Penrod  ( 1914),  Penrod  and 


332        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Sam  (1915)  and  Seventeen  (1916).  Meantime,  in 
The  Turmoil  (1915)  he  became  the  sociologist. 

In  refusing  to  be  pigeon-holed  and  in  maintaining 
that  the  only  thing  which  matters  is  how  a  book  is 
written,  Mr.  Tarkington  is  very  properly  indifferent 
to  type  and  to  whether  he  has  produced  a  short  story, 
a  long  one,  or  a  novel.  Perhaps  Benedetto  Croce  is 
right  in  his  views  on  literary  types.  Surely,  it  can 
matter  little  whether  one  reads  Penrod  as  a  volume  or 
as  a  series  of  magazine  stories.  But  to  evaluate  them 
as  separate  narratives,  it  is  necessary  to  read  them  in 
The  Cosmopolitan  and  The  Metropolitan  before  they 
are  lost  in  the  continuity  and  chapter  divisions  of  the 
books. 

To  read  the  volume,  Penrod,  is  to  behold  an  un 
folding  panorama  of  boyhood,  to  know  in  particular 
the  history  of  one  boy,  ten  or  eleven  years  of  age,  a 
boy  with  a  friend  Sam  and  a  dog  Duke.  It  is  to  recall 
others  of  his  kind,  Aldrich's  Tom  Bailey,  Matthews' 
Tom  Paulding;  his  near  kinsmen,  Tom  Sawyer  and 
lHuck  Finn,  and  his  not  too  remote  ancestor,  Peck's 
Bad  Boy.  It  is  to  live  life  with  Penrod  and  Sam. 
But  to  read  each  story  as  it  appeared  was  to  receive 
a  definite  impression  of  a  single  conflict  worked  out  to 
a  satisfactory  if  sometimes  rueful  issue.  There  is  the 
famous  attempt  of  Penrod  to  escape  the  ignominy  of 
appearing  in  trunks  cut  down  from  his  father's  red 
flannels  by  covering  them  with  the  janitorial  overalls, 
and  so  regaling  the  audience  assembled  for  the  pageant. 


BOOTH  TARKINGTON  333 

The  Children  of  the  Table  Round.  There  is  his  vio 
lent  opposition  to  the  epithet,  "Little  Gentleman,"  with 
the  consequences  of  his  fight  against  its  application  to 
himself  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Kinosling,  et  at.  Incidentally, 
the  Kinosling  gentleman  receives  his  come-uppance  in 
one  of  the  most  delicious  bits  of  satire  the  author  has 
achieved.  There  is  the  famous  fight  between  the  tough 
guy,  Rupe  Collins,  and  the  colored  troops  commanded 
by  Penrod,  a  battle  wherein  Herman  urges  enthusi 
astically  the  cutting  out  of  Mr.  Collin's  "gizzud,"  a 
battle  from  which  Rupe  makes  an  exit  that  forbids 
further  relations  with  Penrod  and  Sam  and  Herman 
and  Verman. 

To  read  Seventeen  is  to  read  an  epic  of  adolescence. 
William  Sylvanus  Baxter  is  one  of  the  most  humorous 
figures  of  fiction;  he  is  funny  because  having  passed 
through  similar  trials  and  tribulations,  we  who  are 
older  look  down  upon  him  from  a  superior  height ;  he 
is  funny  because  of  the  incongruity  between  the  deadly 
seriousness  of  life  as  he  finds  it  and  the  triviality  of 
his  affairs  as  the  reader  sees  them ;  he  is  funny  because 
of  the  author's  exuberant  devices  for  emphasizing  this 
incongruity.  To  think  of  him  after  reading  the  book, 
is  to  think  of  him  as  brother  to  the  irrepressible  Jane, 
son  to  a  considerate  mother  and  matter-of-fact  father ; 
a  boy  who  liked  his  own  age  and  kind  and  found  in 
supportable  the  intrusions  from  elders  or  children  or 
darkies  of  the  Genesis  order  or  dogs  of  the  Clematis 
breed ;  a  young  man  who  suffered  the  tortures  of  young 


334        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

love  and  the  fervors  of  verse  writing.  But  to  read  the 
stories  was  to  follow  a  series  of  individual  conflicts: 
between  William  and  his  Mother  regarding  the  dis 
position  of  his  father's  dress  suit;  between  himself 
and  the  Big  Fat  Lummox  for  the  favor  of  a  lady;  be 
tween  him  and  Fate,  a  fate  which  prevented  his  pres 
ence  when  he  should  have  been  at  home  to  his  friends, 
a  fate  which  barred  his  dancing  "on  and  on"  with  the 
Baby  Talk  Lady  of  his  affections  at  the  farewell  party. 
We  are  glad  to  have  the  books ;  but  we  shall  be  happier 
to  recall  the  tales  which  unfolded,  month  by  month, 
in  the  magazines  so  fortunate  as  to  publish  them. 

In  the  Arena,  Penrod,  Penrod  and  Sam,  and  Seven 
teen  and  the  tales  that  appeared  in  Everybody's  about 
Lucius  Brutus  Allen  are  the  cream  of  Mr.  Tarkington's 
short  stories.  And  of  these,  Seventeen  and  Penrod 
are  the  heavy  cream.  His  novelettes,  particularly 
Cherry,  The  Beautiful  Lady  and  Monsieur  Beaucaire, 
have  gained  for  him — probably  because  they  preceded 
these  later  works — greater  popularity.  Monsieur 
Beaucaire  is  one  of  a  very  few  American  productions 
to  have  been  sung  in  Grand  Opera.  But  from  the  type 
point  of  view  and  from  the  literary  point  of  view,  the 
short  stories  included  under  the  titles  named,  disguised 
as  they  are,  are  his  high-water  accomplishments. 
Those  of  us  who  do  care  about  form  cannot  but  regret 
that  the  gems  have  lost  their  individuality,  cut  up  and 
strung,  bead-like,  throughout  the  volume.  They  will 
be  forgotten,  in  short,  as  stories,  because  of  the  amor- 


BOOTH  TARKINGTON  335 

phous  state  to  which  chapter  division  has  reduced  them. 
Not  that  it  matters;  but  the  destruction  of  form  has 
significance  with  respect  to  views  held  by  their  builder, 
and  rescue  of  the  old  structure  is  probably  hopeless. 

As  story-maker,  Mr.  Tarkington  succeeds  through 
his  struggle  element.  His  plots  are  insignificant.  This 
truth  again  does  not  mean  criticism  of  his  works  from 
a  literary  point  of  view;  character  is  the  ultimate  re 
mainder,  and  that  is  as  he  would  have  it.  If  Mr. 
Holiday's  definition  of  a  short  story  be  accepted,  then 
Booth  Tarkington  is  a  king  of  story-makers:  "A  good 
story,  after  all,  is  a  fabrication  in  which  real  people 
seem  to  do  very  real  things."  "Fabrication"  challenges 
a  twinkle;  for  a  fabrication  is  a  structure;  but,  of 
course,  it  may  mean  literary  invention. 

Mr.  Tarkington  is  interested  in  people,  and  as  he 
said  in  a  symposium  in  The  New  York  Sun  (April  17, 
I9I5)»  which  arraigned  a  number  of  replies  against 
Melville  Davisson  Post's  The  Blight,  "It  seems  strange 
that  he  does  not  perceive  the  pro  founder  interest  of 
the  mystery  and  surprise  of  character." 

Mr.  Tarkington  is  a  hard  worker.  By  dint  of  eat 
ing  little  and  carrying  on  for  eighteen  hours  or  so 
at  a  stretch,  he  frequently  accomplishes  ten  thousand 
words  a  day.  He  loves  the  open  and  enjoys  his 
summer  home  at  Kennebunkport,  Maine.  He  writes 
best,  he  has  said — whether  seriously  or  humorously — 
"in  a  dirty,  dark,  dull  place." 


336        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 
Mr.  Tarkington's  Novelettes  and  Short  Stories: 

Monsieur  Beaucaire,  1900. 

Cherry,  1903. 

In  the  Arena,  1905. 

The  Beautiful  Lady,  1905. 

His  Own  People,  1907. 

Beasley's  Christmas  Party,  1909. 

Penrod,  1914. 

Penrod  and  Sam,  1916. 

Seventeen,  1916. 


CHAPTER  XX 

EDITH    WHARTON 

IN  1899  appeared  a  slender  volume  of  two  hun 
dred  and  twenty-nine  pages,  containing  eight 
short  stories  under  the  inclusive  title,  The  Greater 
Inclination.  In  the  following  five  years  the  author 
established  her  high  place  in  contemporary  fiction,  in 
ten  years  her  definite  leadership,  and  in  another  decade 
her  priority  among  women  writers  in  America.  In 
her  novels  her  talent  has  found  exercise,  through  freer 
expression,  to  her  greater  popularity;  in  her  short 
stories,  through  a  more  restricted  medium,  to  her  per 
fection  of  art. 

Among  the  causes  that  elevated  Mrs.  Wharton  to 
her  enviable  altitude  are  her  birth  into  a  world  smooth- 
gliding  socially;  her  dower  of  intelligence  and  genius; 
her  education  in  belles  lettres;  her  interest  in  a  di 
versity  of  subjects  common  to  a  limited  range;  her 
love  for  a  cosmopolitan  life,  in  the  broadest  sense; 
and  her  artistic  conscience,  satisfied  with  nothing  less 
than  perfection. 

Edith  Newbold  Jones  was  born  in  New  York  City 
337 


338        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

in  1862.  Presumably,  she  grew  up  after  the  fashion 
of  young  girls,  gently  bred,  who  both  suffered  from 
and  profited  by  mid-Victorian  ideals.  That  she  studied 
under  tutors  at  home,  that  she  traveled,  that  she  read 
widely,  and  that  she  was  married  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
three  to  Edward  Wharton,  of  Boston — so  much  the 
public  is  privileged  to  know.  But  when  her  author 
ized  biography  is  written,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  in  it 
the  incidents  of  her  early  life  may  find  a  generous 
place;  for  if  the  literary  output  of  a  writer  is  con 
ditioned  by  the  first  four  years  of  existence,  it  would 
be  illuminating  and  instructive  to  grow  four  years 
old  with  Miss  Edith  Jones. 

Her  removal  from  th$,  commercial  metropolis  to  the 
metropolis  of  culture — as  Boston  allowably  was  even 
through  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century — 
meant  further  entrenchment  in  books  and  art.  Not 
that  she  did  not  relish  humanity;  but  while  through 
one-half  of  her  brain  she  lived,  with  the  other  she 
criticized  life.  And  in  her  accompanying  studies  or 
reading  she  learned  a  way  to  use  her  own  appraise 
ments,  Her  obvious  acquaintance  with  the  masters 
early  invoked  the  charge  that  hers  was  a  literary  point 
of  view,  dissociated  from  actual  life.  The  truth  is 
that  her  own  angle  either  completed  that  of  her  clas 
sic  authors  or  merged  with  it.  Her  art  is  dead,  says* 
one  critic;  it  is  bookish,  says  another.  Her  body  of 
expression  undoubtedly  develops  from  the  writer's 
treatment  of  subjects  observed  through  the  writer's 


EDITH  WHARTON  339 

eyes.  There  are  those  of  us,  however,  who  place  her 
art  the  higher  because  of  this  verity.  And  if  the  life 
she  relentlessly  analyzes  is  fortified  by  convention  and 
removed  from  lowlier  planes  of  existence,  it  is — 
whether  to  the  credit  or  discredit  of  civilization — one 
of  the  topmost  strata;  and  it  is  brought  through  her 
art  into  closer  relation  with  the  rest  of  the  world. 

This  relation  had  already  been  effected,  in  part, 
through  a  fellow-New  Yorker,  the  late  Henry  James. 
At  the  time  Mrs.  Wharton  began  to  publish,  in  Scrib- 
ner*s  Magazine,  in  the  late  nineties,  Mr.  James  had 
reached  the  height  of  his  career.  Her  admiration  of 
his  work,  plus  a  heritage,  social  status,  and  interests 
the  counterpart  of  his,  resulted  in  her  following  his 
blazed  path,  foremost  of  the  trailers,  and  later  in  out 
stripping  his  pioneer  leadership.* 

From  almost  the  beginning  he  was  her  encouraging 
critic  and  friend.  In  1902  he  thanks  Mrs.  Wharton's 
sister-in-law  for  two  of  Mrs.  Wharton's  books.  "I 
take  to  her  very  kindly,"  he  wrote  from  England, 
where  he  had  established  his  abode,  "as  regards  her 
diabolical  little  cleverness,  the  quantity  of  intention  and 
intelligence  in  her  style,  and  her  sharp  eye  for  an  in 
teresting  kind  of  subject."  On  his  American  tour 
in  1905  he  established  acquaintance  with  her  and  her 
husband,  who  were  living  at  the  time  in  Lenox,  and 
enjoyed  the  whole  country-side  by  the  aid  of  their 

*"Comme   Henry   James,    Mrs.    Wharton   ne    frequente   que 
1'elite"— Regis  Michaud. 


340        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

high  speed  automobile;  in  1907  he  visited  them  at 
Paris,  later  taking  a  motor  tour  with  them  over  West 
ern  and  Southern  France.  Mrs.  Wharton's  A  Motor 
Flight  through  France  (1908)  is  a  testimony  to  her 
love  for  adventure,  in  a  rapid  car,  with  lingering  mo 
ments  at  a  favorite  cathedral  or  the  home  of  an  ad 
mired  writer — George  Sand,  for  instance — and  illus 
trates  what  Mr.  James  called  her  "great  heroic  rushes 
and  revolutions/'  "her  dazzling,  her  incessant  braveries 
of  far  excursionism." 

Since  no  discussion  of  Mrs.  Wharton,  however 
brief,  ever  has  omitted  the  influence  of  Henry  James, 
it  should  be  pointed  out  that  she  was  by  no  means  sus 
ceptible  to  over-influence.  The  resemblance,  as  has 
been  indicated  above,  is  rooted  in  life  itself;  she  is 
more  than  the  first  of  his  "school";  she  is  the  origi 
nator  of  her  own.  In  1906  Mr.  James  wrote  her, 
apropos  of  her  taking  up  life  in  Paris,  "Don't  go  in 
too  much  for  the  French  or  the  'Franco-American' 
subject — the  real  field  of  your  extension  is  here  [Eng 
land] — it  has  far  more  f usability  with  our  [Ameri 
can]  native  and  primary  material ;  between  which  and 
French  elements  there  is,  I  hold,  a  disparity  as  com 
plete  as  between  a  life  led  in  trees,  say,  and  a  life 
led  in  ...  sea-depths,  or  in  other  words,  between 
that  of  climbers  and  swimmers."  *  In  the  face  of  this 

*  The  Letters  of  Henry  James,  Selected  and  Edited  by  Percy 
Lubbock,   Charles  Scribner's  Sons,   1920. 


EDITH  WHARTON  341 

caution,  she  produced  one  of  her  greatest  accomplish 
ments,  Madame  de  Treymes. 

After  the  spring  of  1907,  Mr.  James's  letters  to 
Mrs.  Wharton  dropped  the  formal  introduction.  She 
became  "Dear  Edith,"  "Dearest  Edith,"  to  whom  he 
was,  in  the  complimentary  close,  her  "faithfully  fond 
old  Henry  James."  For  the  nine  years  until  his  death 
there  existed  between  them  an  intimate  sympathy  and 
a  mutual  appreciation  which,  revealed  in  The  Letters 
of  Henry  James,  render  the  two  volumes  invaluable 
human  documents.  In  1908  he  visited  her  in  Paris; 
later,  in  the  same  year,  he  wrote  Mrs.  Henry  White, 
"We  have  been  having  here  lately  the  great  and  glori 
ous  pendulum  in  person,  Mrs.  Wharton,  on  her  return 
oscillation,  spending  several  weeks  in  England  for 
almost  the  first  time  ever  ..."  And  between  the  two 
visits  he  had  written  her,  in  a  dark  period  of  her  life, 
"I  don't  pretend  to  understand  or  to  imagine  .  .  . 
Only  sit  tight  yourself  and  go  through  the  movements 
of  life." 

To  return  to  The  Greater  Inclination.  The  stories 
of  the  volume  which  best  represent  the  scope  of  the 
work,  the  author's  power,  her  keen  understanding  of 
mental  processes,  and  her  perfection  of  finish  are  The 
Muse's  Tragedy,  A  Journey,  The  Pelican,  and  Souls 
Belated, 

In  The  Muse's  Tragedy  the  following  plot  unfolds : 
Danyers  meets  and  falls  in  love  with  Mary  Anerton. 
This  lady  has  been  the  friend,  the  inspirer,  of  the  poet 


342        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

Rendle,  now  dead,  and  Mrs.  Anerton  enjoys  a  pseudo- 
celebrity  as  the  Sylvia  of  his  poems.  Danyers  pro 
poses  and  is  rejected.  Mary  Anerton  writes  him  that 
Rendle  had  never  really  loved  her.  She  had  felt,  after 
his  death,  that  perhaps  she  had  been  too  old,  too  ugly 
to  stir  him,  and  she  had — not  entirely  with  calculation 
— let  Danyers  fall  in  love;  for  she  wished  to  prove 
her  theory  or  disprove  it.  Her  punishment  lies  in 
the  disproof,  and  in  the  attendant  fact  that  she  sees 
for  the  first  time  "all  that  she  has  missed." 

This  story  will  serve  for  a  point  of  departure  for 
a  brief  discussion  of  a  question,  frequently  stated  as 
an  affirmation  that  Mrs.  Wharton's  technic  has  changed 
but  slightly  from  1899  to  the  present.  Formerly  of 
the  opinion  that  the  abrupt  shift  from  the  point  of 
view  of  Danyers  to  the  letter  of  Mrs.  Anerton  would 
have  been  rejected  for  a  more  consistent  angle  of  nar 
ration  had  the  author  written  the  story  later,  and  find 
ing  our  own  conclusions  buttressed  by  a  similar  opin 
ion  on  the  part  of  Frederic  Taber  Cooper,*  we  were 
the  more  impressed  by  a  comment  Mr.  James  made 
concerning  The  Reef  (1912).  "I  suffer  or  worry  a 
little,"  he  wrote  Mrs.  Wharton,  "from  the  fact  that 
in  the  Prologue,  as  it  were,  we  are  admitted  so  much 
into  the  consciousness  of  the  man,  and  that  after  the 
introduction  of  Anna  (Anna,  so  perfectly  named)  we 
see  him  almost  only  as  she  sees  him — which  gives 
our  attention  a  different  sort  of  work  to  do."  .  .  .  One 
*  See  Some  American  Story  Tellers. 


EDITH  WHARTON  343 

may  argue,  however,  that  the  novel  in  general  allows 
the  shift  whereas  the  short  story  does  not,  and  that 
in  her  later  short  stories  the  point  of  view  is  usually 
maintained.  The  large  point  at  the  moment  is  that 
the  master  technician  noted  the  same  kind  of  jar  in 
The  Reef  which  readers  of  The  Muse's  Tragedy  had 
experienced. 

The  Muse's  Tragedy  illustrates,  too,  Mrs.  Whar- 
ton's  development  of  a  situation;  she  converts  a  mis 
understanding  to  an  understanding;  she  pursues  with 
punishment  in  kind  the  yielding  of  a  sensitive  soul  to 
a  subtle  temptation.  It  further  orientates  her  best- 
worked  field,  that  of  literature  and  art,  and  one  of  her 
best-loved  settings,  Italy. 

A  Journey  has  shared  honors  with  Etlwn  Frame 
(1911)  in  being  accounted  "the  best  short  story "  Amer 
ica  has  yet  produced.  In  close  circumscription  of  place 
— a  train  from  Buffalo  to  New  York,  in  brevity  of 
time — part  of  a  day  only,  and  in  its  successful  struggle 
of  the  heroine  to  bring  the  body  of  her  husband  into 
the  city  before  his  death  is  discovered,  it  fulfills  eco 
nomically  the  requirements  of  the  short  story.  But 
poignancy  the  author  sacrifices  to  intellectual  probing 
and  dissection. 

Souls  Belated  is  a  study  in  the  infringement  of  so 
cial  laws.  Mr.  Cooper  has  called  attention  to  Mrs. 
Wharton's  "rather  rigid  prejudices  of  social  caste," 
and  Mr.  John  Curtis  Underwood  to  her  "patrician  ex- 


344        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

clusiveness."  Here,  as  in  other  stories,  the  social  back 
ground  is  an  eternal  verity  against  which  the  indi 
vidual  struggle  is  posed  in  high  relief.  Lydia  Tillot- 
son  and  Ralph  Gannett  are  traveling  in  Italy  when 
they  receive  news  that  Tillotson  has  obtained  a  decree 
of  divorce.  Lydia  tries  to  hold  out  against  marrying 
Gannett,  struggling  not  only  against  custom  but  her 
feeling  for  the  marriage  tie.  Her  ethical  sense  that 
the  ceremony  of  marriage  will  not  undo  the  evil  goes 
down  against  the  combination.  The  story  introduces 
a  second  line  of  interest  and  uses  it  for  effecting  a 
slight  complication :  the  two  main  characters  are  paral 
leled  by  another  couple  in  a  situation  similar  to  their 
own. 

So  far,  the  examples  chosen  have  dealt  with  crucial 
moments.  But  in  The  Pelican  the  author  tries  her 
hand  at  character  degeneration.  Mrs.  Amyot,  a  young 
and  charming  widow,  who  must  support  her  baby, 
takes  the  lecture  platform.  From  Greek  art  she  passes 
to  evolution  and  succeeding  subjects,  discussing  each 
from  a  storehouse  of  information  no  greater  than  the 
encyclopedia  affords,  supplemented  by  chance  aid  from 
more  or  less  academic  friends.  Successful,  so  far  as 
her  superficial  purpose  is  concerned,  she  keeps  up  the 
pretense  that  she  is  maintaining  her  boy  long  after 
he  has  finished  college,  is  married  and  himself  a  parent. 
This  story  which  has  excited  both  favorable  and  un 
favorable  critical  reaction  should  have  been  written  as 


EDITH  WHARTON  345 

a  novel  or  a  novelette.  The  Folletts  *  suggest  that 
Mrs.  Wharton's  treatment  of  the  short  story  meant 
the  development  of  a  new  kind  of  novel;  that  her  prac 
tice  broke  down  barriers  between  the  types.  There  is 
much  in  this  point  of  view ;  but,  after  all  is  said,  there 
are  norms  from  which  departure  occurs  in  greater 
or  lesser  degree.  In  The  Pelican  Mrs.  Wharton  used 
material  for  a  successful  novel  in  a  comparatively  un 
successful  short  story.  This  statement  is  not  to  hedge 
the  opinion  that  it  is  one  of  four  numbers  in  the  vol 
ume  which  represent  the  power  of  the  author  and  her 
feeling  for  perfection.  Even  the  denouement,  which 
dramatically  presents  the  son  of  Mrs.  Amyot  turning 
upon  her  in  ungentlemanly  manner,  and  which  has 
been  criticized  as  a  flaw,  is  not  markedly  below  her 
level. 

The  Touchstone  ( 1900)  may  be  discussed  as  an  in 
stance  of  the  "cross-type"  Mrs.  Wharton  early 
achieved,  partaking  as  it  does  of  both  the  short  story 
and  the  novelette  characteristics.  Glennard,  an  im 
pecunious  New  York  lawyer,  reads  an  advertisement 
in  the  London  Spectator  to  the  effect  that  Professor 
Joslyn,  who  is  writing  the  life  of  Margaret  Aubyn, 
wants  letters  from  the  famous  woman,  now  three 
years  dead.  Glennard  has  hundreds  of  letters  from 
Margaret  Aubyn,  for  she  had  loved  him.  Her  intel 
lect  had  drawn  him,  whereas  her  physical  self  had 

*  Some  Modern  Novelists,  by  Helen  Thomas  Follet  and  Wilson 
Follett,  Henry  Holt  and  Co.,  1918. 


346        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

repelled  him:  "He  saw  her  again  as  she  had  looked 
at  their  first  meeting,  the  poor  woman  of  genius  with 
her  long  pale  face  and  short-sighted  eyes  ...  so  in 
capable,  even  then,  of  any  hold  upon  the  pulses." 
Now,  Glennard  is  poor  and  he  is  in  love  with  Alexa 
Trent.  The  basis  for  the  moral  struggle — and  the 
critic  who  sees  no  struggle  in  this  author's  stories  is 
myopic — lies  in  the  incident  of  Glennard' s  hushing  his 
inner  voice  while  he  sells  the  letters  for  something 
like  ten  thousand  dollars.  The  double  sequence  is, 
of  course,  his  marriage  to  Alexa  and  the  publication 
of  Margaret's  letters  in  a  volume  which  becomes  the 
literary  event  of  the  season.  The  rest  of  the  story 
has  to  do  with  remorse  and  punishment.  At  first, 
Glennard  keeps  the  transaction  from  his  wife,  then 
he  allows  her  to  see  a  slip  from  the  publishers  stating 
that  they  are  sending  him  a  royalty.  Alexa  makes  no 
sign.  By  and  by,  from  his  unendurable  torture  he 
confesses  to  the  last  degree  the  depth  of  his  degra 
dation.  The  denouement  shows  how  purification  comes 
through  Alexa.  Mrs.  Wharton  says  elsewhere, — "The 
plain  man  is  a  touchstone  who  draws  out  all  the  alloy 
in  the  gold."  From  start  to  finish  the  angle  is  that 
of  Glennard,  and  in  this  essential  the  technic  is  that 
of  the  short  story.  If  he  were,  throughout,  the  domi 
nant  character,  he  would  make  still  further  for  short 
story  unification.  But  here  enter  the  claims  of  the 
novelette :  Alexa  assumes  first  place,  and  although  her 
promotion  is  so  gradual  as  to  prevent  jar  in  the  switch- 


EDITH  WHARTON  347 

ing  of  relative  importance,  yet  a  more  expanded  canvas 
would  have  developed  her  proportionately  to  her  value 
revealed  in  the  denouement.  The  title,  too,  emphasizes 
her  role.  In  England  the  work  was  published,  per 
haps  more  appropriately,  as  A  Gift  from  th-e  Grave, 
which  brings  into  greater  relief  a  larger  thesis.  It 
subdues  Alexa — as  the  touchstone — preserves  the 
relative  position  of  Glennard,  and  establishes  the  sig 
nificance  of  Margaret  Aubyn. 

The  Touchstone  felicitously  illustrates  Michaud's 
view,  that  by  a  curious  inversion  in  Mrs.  Wharton's 
books,  sensibility  lies  with  the  men  and  logic  with 
the  women.  Glennard  suffers;  Alexa  understands  and 
reasons. 

Crucial  Instances  (1901)  continues  the  use  of  Italy 
as  a  setting  in  The  Duchess  at  Prayer.  In  The  Con 
fessional,  The  Recovery  and  The  Moving  Finger  the 
action  shifts  shuttle-wise  between  America  and  Italy 
or  France.  As  the  French  critic  has  remarked  of  Mrs. 
Wharton,  "L'Amerique  ne  lui  suffit  pas.  Elle  s'en 
vient  en  Italic  at  en  France  chercher  des  impressions 
et  des  sujets."  Art  continues  to  provide  interest  in 
The  Recovery,  The  Rembrandt  and  The  Moving  Fin 
ger.  A  new  note  is  struck  in  the  fantasy  of  the  last- 
named:  the  portrait  of  Grancy's  wife  is  changed  by 
the  portrait  painter,  from  time  to  time,  to  grow  old 
with  her  husband,  and  at  last  gives  a  revelation  to  the 
artist,  himself :  "I  swear  it  was  her  face  that  told  me 
he  was  dying,  and  that  she  wanted  him  to  know  it!" 


348        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

It  may  be  chance  that  a  sentence  in  this  story  reflects 
Mrs.  Wharton's  concept  of  art  and  its  function  as 
measured  by  her  own  attainments :  "  Tygmalion/ 
he  began  slowly,  'turned  his  statue  into  a  real  woman; 
I  turned  my  woman  into  a  picture/  '  For  the  sum 
of  criticism,  laudatory  of  aim  or  otherwise,  is  that  she 
does  just  this  thing.  ...  It  is  surely  not  by  chance, 
however,  that  "Copy":  A  Dialogue  throws  a  gently 
shaded  saturnine  light  on  the  processes  of  the  writer, 
male  or  female.  Brief  as  it  is,  it  deserves  study  as  a 
companion  piece  to  Barrie's  Sentimental  Tommy. 
Ventnor's  charging  Mrs.  Dale  with  being  a  "marvelous 
dialectician"  might  have  been  taken  from  current  com 
ment  on  Mrs.  Wharton's  methods.  Perhaps  with  Vent- 
nor  she  recalls  the  time  when  "we  didn't  prepare  our 
impromptu  effects  beforehand  and  copyright  our  re 
marks  about  the  weather,"  and  with  Mrs.  Dale  when 
"she  did  not  keep  her  epigrams  in  cold  storage  and 
her  adjectives  under  lock  and  key."  From  the  be 
ginning  she  has  been  a  creator  of  phrases,  a  fabricant 
of  word  combinations.  If  a  writer  deliberately  chooses 
to  be  so  clever  in  the  particular  thought  or  picture 
or  mere  manner  as  to  draw  attention  from  the  larger 
unit — whether  it  be  sonnet  or  short  story — she  must 
suffer  the  corresponding  diminution  of  interest  in  her 
integral  effect.  Apparently  the  practice  does  not  pay ; 
and  yet  the  writer  who  does  not  painstakingly  labor 
with  words  and  phrases  rarely  achieves  the  wizardry 
of  style. 


EDITH  WHARTON  349 

The  Duchess  at  Prayer  is  an  interesting  variant  of 
an  old  plot  used  by  Poe  and,  earlier,  by  Balzac.* 
Burying  a  person  alive  they  employed  to  tragic,  if  not 
melodramatic,  effect;  Mrs.  Wharton  subdues  tragedy 
to  psychology.  The  same  process  is  found  working 
in  The  Confessional,  wherein  the  old  story  of  a  sub 
stitute  for  a  Father  Confessor  and  the  ensuing  con 
fession  is  poignantly  varied.  The  scene  in  which  Ro 
berto  Siviano  defends  his  wife's  honor  is  one  of  the 
most  dramatic  in  the  author's  repertoire,  built  on  care 
ful  analysis  of  motive  and  conflicting  ideals. 

In  The  Descent  of  Man  (1904)  Mrs.  Wharton  adds 
to  her  catalogue  of  interests  that  in  biology.  The  title 
story  and  The  Debt,  the  latter  in  her  Tales  of  Men  and 
Ghosts,  reflect  her  attitude  toward  the  subjects  of  evo 
lution,  scientific  research  and  progress.  If  the  burden 
of  this  task  sounds  heavy  for  fiction,  her  easy  victory 
in  bearing  it  off  should  meet  louder  applause.  The 
irony  of  The  Descent  and  the  seriousness  of  The  Debt 
combine  to  represent  the  academic  and  the  social  point 
of  view  of  a  writer  just  learning  the  use  of  her  dead 
liest  weapon — humor.  For  in  her  hands  its  mordant 
edge  not  even  the  reader  may  escape.  No  gentle  thud 
on  the  shoulder,  knighting  the  reader  to  a  superior 
position  whence  he  looks  down  upon  and  laughs  at 
the  objects  of  her  comedy,  immeasurably  below  him; 
but  a  flashing  cut  and  thrust,  from  which  he  flinches, 
sooner  or  later  sure  he  will  meet  the  blade :  this  is  her 
play  of  humor. 


350       OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

The  other  eight  stories  in  The  Descent  handle  so 
ciety  more  satirically.  The  Other  Two  (presenting 
Way  thorn  and  his  wife,  who  had  been  twice  married, 
at  tea  with  her  former  husbands)  is  a  social  com 
edy,  measured  by  the  problem  play  of  the  earlier  Souls 
Belated.  Jane,  of  The  Mission,  uniquely  brings  about 
understanding  between  the  husband  and  wife  who  have 
adopted  her;  The  Reckoning,  The  Quicksand,  and  The 
Dilettante,  though  more  sympathetic  and  evincing  real 
interest  in  the  situations  disclosed,  are  not  without 
their  barbs ;  Expiation,  in  its  union  of  the  Church,  the 
social  world  and  the  world  of  letters,  achieves  a  triple 
thrust.  Notwithstanding  the  adaptation  of  the  volume 
title,  no  other  could  so  well  describe  the  nature  of  the 
several  numbers  composing  it. 

Her  manifest  interest  in  marriage  and  divorce 
joined  to  her  first  hand  knowledge  of  French  custom 
rises  triumphant  in  Madame  de  Treymes  (1907).  For 
breadth  of  sympathy,  for  comprehension  of  opposing 
French  and  American  standards,  for  acute  play  of  in 
tellect  expressed  through  the  persons  of  her  drama, 
she  has  nowhere  surpassed  herself  in  this  pendant  to 
Henry  James's  Madame  de  Mauves.  Pendant  it  is 
usually  termed,  but  unfairly,  for  it  is  superior  to  the 
first  work. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  before  the  publica 
tion  of  Madame  de  Treymes  Mrs.  Wharton  had  pub 
lished  two  noteworthy  novels :  The  Valley  of  Decision 
(1902),  whose  characters  lived  in  an  Italy  of  the  past, 


EDITH  WHARTON  351 

and  The  House  of  Mirth  (1905),  whose  Lily  Bart  has 
not  been  outranked  by  any  contemporary  New  York 
lady  of  fiction.  Sanctuary  (1903)  should  be  added 
to  these,  rather  than  to  the  list  of  the  author's  long 
short  stories.  Works  more  or  less  factual  and  descrip 
tive  are  Italian  Villas  and  Their  Gardens  (1904),  and 
Italian  Backgrounds  (1905).  After  Madame  de 
Treymes  came  The  Fruit  of  the  Tree  (1907),  the  least 
satisfactory  of  her  novels. 

An  unhappy  period  of  Mrs.  Wharton's  life  may  be 
responsible  in  part  for  her  descent  in  The  Hermit  and 
the  Wild  Woman  (1908).  In  any  event,  the  collec 
tion  adds  nothing  to  her  fame  if  it  does  not,  even, 
subtract  therefrom.  The  titular  story,  to  be  sure, 
creates  a  slight  surmise  that  the  author  has  developed 
an  interest  in  medieval  Christianity ;  but  the  rank  and 
file  follow  without  distinction  the  beaten  path. 

Since  the  Motor  Flight,  mentioned  above,  Mrs. 
Wharton  has  spent  most  of  her  time  abroad.  She 
added  Germany  to  her  countries  of  invasion,  visiting 
Munich  in  1909,  and  some  time  later  having  trans 
lated  Sudermann's  Es  Lebe  das  Leben,  published  it 
as  The  Joy  of  Life.  In  1909  her  volume  of  verse 
appeared :  Artemis  to  Acteon.  A  revival  of  the  super 
natural  theme,  first  struck  in  The  Moving  Finger 
marks  the  publication  of  her  Tales  of  Men  and  Ghosts 
(1910).  Unless  "ghosts"  be  interpreted  freely,  the 
stories  deal  separately  with  the  two  terms  of  the  title. 
The  Bolted  Door,  for  instance,  is  a  remarkable  story 


352        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

of  a  criminal,  who  having  gone  unsuspected  for  a  num 
ber  of  years  meets  only  incredulity  upon  his  con 
fessing.  The  door  opening  to  restitution,  which  he 
agonizingly  desires  to  make,  is  "bolted."  It  is  char 
acteristic  of  Mrs.  Wharton's  genius  that  she  reverses 
the  theme  Maupassant  worked  out  in  A  Piece  of  String 
(La  Ficelle),  and  which  Tchekov  varied  in  The  Death 
of  an  Official.  It  is  so  much  more  difficult  to  follow 
seriously  the  criminal  who  vainly  wishes  to  be  found 
guilty  than  the  innocent  man  who  tries  to  prove  him 
self  guiltless.  All  readers  of  this  book  will  recall  the 
story  in  which  a  pair  of  detached  eyes  haunt  the  char 
acter,  Frenham.  As  he  finishes  his  rehearsed  tale,  his 
hearers  see  his  reflection  in  the  mirror  and  recognize 
that  he  had  been  haunted  by  an  image  of  that  which 
would  come  to  express  his  character  development.  The 
powerful  moral  lesson  in  no  manner  weakens  the  dra 
matic  appeal  of  The  Eyes.  Afterward  resembles,  as 
a  type  of  the  supernatural  story,  Henry  James's  The 
Turn  of  the  Screw,  which  preceded  it  by  a  dozen  years 
or  so.  Of  other  stories  in  the  volume,  The  Daunt 
Diana  is  the  most  beautiful;  not  only  so:  it  is  the  most 
beautiful  of  all  the  author's  art  stories,  and  this  is 
equivalent  to  saying  that  nowhere  does  she  surpass  it 
in  its  reaction,  upon  the  reader,  of  pure  spiritual  ex 
altation.  The  Letters  represents  her  in  the  social 
world,  again,  making  the  most  of  a  situation  in  which 
a  wife  comes  across  letters  she  had  written  her  hus 
band  before  they  were  married.  The  discovery  that 


EDITH  WHARTON  353 

he  had  not  troubled  to  break  the  seals  is  the  poig 
nantly  small  thing  that  becomes  the  crucial  moment. 
Mrs.  Wharton  is  aware  of  the  value  intimate  holo 
graphs  have  as  stage  properties :  The  Touchstone  and 
"Copy"  are  other  instances  to  this  conclusion. 

Ethan  Frome  (1911)  has  indisputable  claim  to  rank 
as  the  greatest  short  story  in  America.    Its  close  unity, 
its  three  main  characters,  its  Greek  exaltation  of  Fate 
as  supreme  ruler  of  man  and  his  affairs,  its  circum 
scription  of  place,  and  more,  lend  to  it  the  salient  marks 
of  the  brief  fictive  form,  though  its  length  places  it 
in  the  novelette  class.    In  discussing  the  flaws  of  Mrs. 
Wharton's   art,   opinions   differ  widely  over  her  use 
of  detail.     This  story  offers  the  best  example  for  a 
brief  note  upon  this  point.     It  will  be  recalled  that 
Mattie  Silver  and  Ethan  Frome,  in  their  pitiful  at 
tempts  to  make  merry  while  Zeena  is  away,  break  a 
pickle  dish.     Mr.  Percy  Lubbock  says  that  such  an 
instance  is  the  natural  and  sufficient  channel  of  great 
emotion.     "The  most  distinguishing  gift  of  the  true 
novelist  is  his  power  of  so  completely  identifying  him 
self  with  the  character  through  whose  eyes  he  is  seeing 
that  his  field  of  vision,  both  in  extent  and  particular 
ity,  is  exactly  no  more  and  no  less  than  that  of  the 
man  or  woman  he  has  imagined."  *    If  this  power  of 
Mrs.  Wharton  is  best  shown  in  Ethan  Frome,  as  he 
thinks,  the  breaking  of  the  dish  must  be  acknowledged 

*  Quarterly  Review,  January, 


354       OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

as  one  of  her  greatest  accomplishments  in  drama.  But 
Mr.  Underwood  thinks  that  the  plot  focuses  " rather 
farcically"  around  this  breakage.  Critics  of  the  latter 
opinion  forget  the  dropping  of  the  handkerchief  in 
Othello,  which  has  served  for  several  hundreds  of 
years,  and  among  characters  to  whom  the  act  might 
have  been  attended  with  less  significance. 

From  1910  to  1913,  Mrs.  Wharton  was  most  of  the 
time  in  Paris,  with  a  week  now  and  then  in  London, 
which  she  again  visited  in  1914.  The  Times  Literary 
Supplement  published  her  article  entitled  The  Criti 
cism  of  Fiction  this  year,  a  work  about  which  Henry 
James  expressed  his  appreciation.  Earlier  in  this 
annns  mirabilis  she  had  toured  through  Algeria  and 
Tunisia,  as  later  she  was  throwing  herself  heart  and 
soul  into  the  struggle  of  France.  Meantime,  The  Reef 
appeared  in  1912,  and  The  Custom  of  the  Country 
in  1914.  The  Book  of  the  Homeless  (1915)  and 
Fighting  France  (1915)  preceded  the  latest  collection 
of  brief  tales  from  Mrs.  Wharton' s  pen:  Xingu  and 
Other  Stories  (1916). 

The  titular  story  is  the  complement,  in  a  certain 
sense,  of  The  Pelican,  which  it  will  be  remembered 
follows  the  fortunes  of  the  shallow  and  showy  lec 
turer,  Mrs.  Amyot.  Osric  Dane  of  the  later  satire  is 
by  no  means  inadequate  in  her  role  of  honored  guest, 
nor  is  Mrs.  Roby,  the  supposedly  ignorant  and  frivo 
lous  member.  If  Mrs.  Wharton  likes  to  betray  her 
sex,  as  has  been  urged,  at  least  she  betrays  it  to  reveal 


EDITH  WHARTON  355 

the  shams  and  weaknesses  attendant  upon  ineptness  in 
literature  in  art,  ineptness  joined  to  pretense.  In  this 
instance,  she  lets  fly  her  barbed  shaft  against  the  ladies 
who  "pursue  Culture  in  bands,  as  though  it  were  dan 
gerous  to  meet  alone."  In  it  one  may  discern  a  rise 
of  irony  and  critical  alertness,  which  may  be  or  may 
not  be  the  result  of  the  author's  seeing  her  country 
women  from  the  superior  age  and  culture  of  an  older 
world — a  world  with  which  she  had  at  last  identified 
her  sympathy  and  point  of  view  through  long  resi 
dence — and  which  may  be  indicative  of  the  author's 
growing  disposition  to  satirize.  Better  than  her  at 
mosphere  of  bright  irony  is  that  of  twilight  seriousness 
in  which  her  ghosts  have  their  being.  The  Triumph 
of  Night,  upon  its  first  appearance  in  Scribner's, 
August,  1914,  was  acclaimed  as  matchless.  For  us, 
it  is  one  of  three  best  ghost  stories  ever  written:  the 
others  are  The  Turn  of  the  Screw,  by  Henry  James; 
and  They,  by  Rudyard  Kipling.  Not  unworthy  of  a 
place  under  the  same  covers  is  Kerfol,  the  tale  of  the 
dog  ghosts  that  return  once  a  year  to  the  house  where 
they  met  death  successively  and  where  they,  in  turn, 
had  enacted  revenge  upon  their  slayer. 

The  Marne  (1918),  a  long  short  story  of  some 
eighteen  or  twenty  thousand  words,  closes  the  list  of 
Mrs.  Wharton's  stories  in  book  form,  and  of  subse 
quent  magazine  publications  nothing  worthy  of  record 
has  appeared.  Her  novel,  The  Age  of  Innocence,  be- 


356        OUR  SHORT  STORY  WRITERS 

gun  in  the  Pictorial  Review  in  midsummer  1920,  and 
published  in  book-form  in  the  autumn,  delineates  New 
York  society  of  forty  years  ago. 

Of  Mrs.  Wharton's  superb  work  during  the  war 
there  is  space  for  only  this  comment :  it  would  seem  to 
be  a  special  dispensation  of  providence  that  one  of  our 
best  should  have  trained  for  the  great  conflict — that, 
in  short,  it  was  Edith  Wharton  who  was  there  to  evalu 
ate  the  "beauty  and  the  terror  of  it  all." 

This  summary  of  Mrs.  Wharton's  work  has  been 
futile  if  it  has  not  indicated,  at  least,  that  her  initial 
accomplishment  in  the  realm  of  art,  culture  and  in 
tellect,  drew  together,  through  her  cosmopolitan  sym 
pathy,  the  new  world  and  the  old ;  that  her  later  work 
as  woman,  no  less  than  writer,  has  strengthened 
the  ties  between  America  and  France.  She  is,  always, 
as  Michaud  puts  it,  the  writer  of  psychological  novels 
from  Fifth  Avenue  to  the  Argonne  trenches.  Her 
books,  Percy  Lubbock  has  declared,  are  "from  the 
earliest  to  the  latest,  more  than  a  collection  of  pene 
trating  and  finely  finished  stories;  they  are  linked  epi 
sodes  in  one  continuous  adventure,  the  adventure  of 
her  rare  and  distinguished  critical  intelligence. "  And 
if  we  venture  to  disagree  with  him  when  he  asserts 
that  one  leading  quality  of  her  talent  is  swiftness,  we 
shall  the  more  eagerly  join  with  him  in  extolling  the 
other,  which  is  acuteness. 


EDITH  WHARTON  357 

Mrs.  Wharton's  collections  and  volumes  of  stoties: 

The  Greater  Inclination,  1899. 

The  Touchstone,  1900. 

Crucial  Instances,  1901. 

The  Descent  of  Man,  1904. 

Madame  de  Treymes,  1907. 

The  Hermit  and  the  Wild  Woman,  1908. 

Tales  of  Men  and  Ghosts,  1910. 

Ethan  Frome,  1911. 

Xingu  and  Other  Stories,  1916. 

The  Marne,  1918. 


14  DAY  USE 

TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed 
Renewed  hnnl-Mrn  MiliiiuulmiiiuUte  recall. 


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